Name Awesome

Babs

Girls' name

Strange, foreign, through Barbara

Babs has been given to 285 babies in the U.S. since 1927. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 1961, with 19 recorded.

Babies named Babs, 1963

1 in 565,000

Babs over time, 1880–2025

Girls
0510152018801900192019401960198020002020

Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Babs: meaning, origin, and history

Strange, foreign, through Barbara

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Babs means

Babs belongs to the name family reached through Babs → Barbara. Its meaning is “strange, foreign”.

Dictionary etymologyReferences, data & attribution

From the clipping of Barbara + -s (hypocoristic suffix).

Excerpt from Wiktionary: Babs (English) · CC BY-SA 4.0

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Origin, language, and formation

Babs is used in English.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Barbara.

Pronunciation and spelling

In English, Babs is pronounced /bæbz/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 285 girls were recorded with the name Babs between 1927 and 1963. Its highest annual count was 19 in 1961; its best national rank was #2,551 in 1933.

How common is Babs?

Babs had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1963, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 1963
1 in 565,000
7 of 3,958,455 births
Among girls only
1 in 275,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 1963
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
391,971 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Babs sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Olivia (13,544)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 1963 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 391,971 children born in 1963 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Babs. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Babss were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Babs was born before 1945 — so the typical Babs is around 80 today.

Median birth year
1945
About 80 years old
Biggest decade
1940s
31.9% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
69.1%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
106
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1940s — 31.9% of all recorded uses (91).

Is Babs rising or falling?

Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.

Rank vs 1 year ago
—
Not ranked then
Rank vs 5 years ago
New entry
Not ranked then
Rank vs 10 years ago
—
Not ranked then
Births vs 10 years ago
—
Not published both years
Share of its own peak
0%
Peak was 1961 (19)
Years since peak
64
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
35.2% average annual change
Best rank ever
#2,551
1933

Spellings of Babs

Babs is not the most common spelling — Bess is, with 26.5% against Babs's 1.1%.

Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.

Babs around the world

Where Babs ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.

  • South Australia
    1981–1981
    #616
    in 1981

Popularity data from Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Babs by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#2,551
1933
Peak year
1961
19 that year
First recorded
1927
Last recorded
1963
All-time count
285
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Babs

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

BabeBabaraBabbieBabbyBabettaBabetteBabieBabbetteBabbiBabitaBabbett

Sibling names for Babs

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Babs

Top names of 1961, Babs's peak yearThe 1960s in fullOther names that peaked in 1933Girls' names starting with B