Gilbert
Gilbert is a boy's name that peaked in 1930, when it was the 90th most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 1,328th. About 62,000 Gilberts are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 59.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Gilbert boys named Gilbert
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 130,821
- Estimated living today
- 62,000
- Median age today
- 59
- Peak year
- 1930
- Best rank
- 90th
- Rank in 2025
- 1,328th
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 673 / 130,148
How old the living Gilberts are
born that year still alive today
Of the 130,821 babies given the name since 1880, about 62,000 are alive — 48 in every hundred. Roughly 3,600 of them are children and 25,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1966 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
Origin Germanic languages
From Old French Gislebert, from Proto-Germanic *Gīslaberhtaz.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Gilberts
- Gilbert Gottfried (1955–2022)American stand-up comedian
- Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette (1757–1834)French general and politician
- Gilbert N. Lewis (1875–1946)American physical chemist
- Gilbert Ryle (1900–1976)British philosopher
- Gilbert Bécaud (1927–2001)French singer, composer, pianist and actor
- Gilbert Arenas (born 1982)American basketball player
- Gilbert Baker (1951–2017)American artist and gay rights activist
- Gilbert Stuart (1755–1828)American painter
People named Gilbert with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Gilbert is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Gilbert is most concentrated in New Mexico (6.2×), Hawaii (3.0×), Arizona (2.7×), Texas (1.9×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1930
The most popular boys’ names the year Gilbert peaked:
Gilbert elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France boys | Gilbert | 180,060 | 21st |
| England and Wales boys | Gilbert | 582 | 783rd |
| France girls | Gilbert | 75 | 1,301st |
| Poland boys | Gilbert | 59 birth registrations | 345th |
| Scotland boys | Gilbert | 54 | 172nd |
| Ireland boys | Gilbert | 24 | 278th |
| Belgium boys | Gilbert | 5 | 1,025th |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Gilbert: rank by region
In 2024, Gilbert was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Valle d'Aosta/Vallée d'Aoste | Gilbert | 8 | 1 |
In 2025, Gilbert was given 2 times or more in 1 region of Poland.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pomorskie | Gilbert | 179 | 3 |
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Italy after 10 names, Poland below 2 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Gilbert among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland boys | Gilbert | 27 | 107 |
A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Where Gilbert lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 374 men called Gilbert were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Men: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lleida | Gilbert | 27 | 0.115 | 711 |
| Girona | Gilbert | 24 | 0.058 | 1,115 |
| Tarragona | Gilbert | 23 | 0.052 | 1,186 |
| Barcelona | Gilbert | 96 | 0.033 | 1,550 |
| Palmas, Las | Gilbert | 13 | 0.022 | 3,074 |
| Alicante/Alacant | Gilbert | 19 | 0.019 | 2,797 |
Listed in 17 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 35 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Gilbert against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.