Barbara

Spellings & scripts●

Locally spelled Варвара in RU Russia, UA Ukraine, KZ Kazakhstan and 1 more, Bárbara in BR Brazil, FR France and ברברה in HU Hungary.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records; ○ marks a model's transliteration. Click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin●

Attested across 17 languages in the etymology graph.

Languages●

Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.

Other names spelled this way◐

Barbara is also recorded as 6 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

• Portuguese given name3.2M records spelled Barbara12 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Brazil, United States, Italy, Portugal

  Languages: Portuguese, Italian

  Also written Bárbara, Barbàra, Barbarà, Bàrbara, Bàrbàrà

• a separate given name486K records spelled Barbara8 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Italy

  Also written Bárbara, Bàrbara, Barbarà, Barbàra, Bārbārā

• Hungarian given name378K records spelled Barbara10 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Hungary, Slovenia, United States, Finland

  Languages: Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian

  Also written Varvara, Bárbara, Bàrbara, Barbarà

• Chinese given name42K records spelled Barbara4 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, Myanmar (Burma), Switzerland

  Languages: Chinese, Burmese

  Also written Bárbara, Barbarà

• Vietnamese given name26K records spelled Barbara3 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in United States, Vietnam, United Kingdom, Italy

  Languages: Vietnamese, Khmer

  Also written Bárbara

• Catalan given name22K records spelled Barbara5 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Spain, Andorra

  Also written Bárbara, Bàrbara, Barbarà, Barbará

99 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses●

Barbara is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

• In German, from the female given name Barbara 'the barbarian woman'

  as a name·Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung

• In Spanish, feminine singular of barbaro

  as a word·kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

• In Italian, feminino de Barbaro; pode ser matronímico ou indicar origem da cidade Barbara.

  as a name·Dicionário dos sobrenomes italianos

• In Italian, Dal greco bárbaros, 'straniera'. S. Barbara, martire.

  as a name·Dizionario Dei Nomi e Cognomi Italiani

• In Swedish, Barbara är ett grekiskt-latinskt namn bildat till grekiskans bárbaros ’som inte talar grekiska; främmande’. I både den rikssvenska och finlandssvenska almanackan 4 december, efter ett helgon (300-talet).

  as a name·Förnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon

Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.

Over time●

US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 146 years between 1880–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

• Saint Barbarab. 273TRearly Christian saint and martyr, from Nicomedia (273-306)
• Barbara McClintockb. 1902USAmerican scientist and cytogeneticist
• Barbara O'Neilb. 1910USactress (1910-1980)
• Barbara Bushb. 1925USFirst Lady of the United States from 1989 to 1993 (1925–2018)
• Barbara Liskovb. 1939USAmerican computer scientist
• Barbara Prammerb. 1954ATpolitician from Austria (1954-2014)
• Barbara Kingsolverb. 1955USAmerican author, poet and essayist
• Barbara Beckerb. 1966DEGerman fashion designer
• Bárbara Morib. 1978UYMexican actress and model
• Barbara Bushb. 1981USAmerican health care activist; daughter of George W. Bush (born 1981)

The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).

Evidence●

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 1,655 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Barbara?

We estimate roughly 1.7 million people bear Barbara (counting its spellings and scripts) across 12 countries in our records.

In which country does Barbara have the most bearers?

We estimate about 942 thousand people bear Barbara in the United States, more than in any other country in our records, where it is most often spelled barbara.

Where is Barbara most common?

Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Barbara is densest in Poland — about 1 in 82 people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.

How common is Barbara compared with other names?

In the United States, Barbara is the 36th most common given name of 3,122,706 given names recorded there.

Is Barbara a male or female name?

Barbara is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.

What does the name Barbara mean?

Recorded meaning: Greek ‘strange’; used in Ireland and to anglicise Gormley.