Name Awesome

Barb

Girls' name

Strange, foreign, through Barbara

Barb has been given to 3,853 babies in the U.S. since 1938. 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 1960, with 493 recorded.

Babies named Barb, 1972

1 in 349,000

Barb over time, 1880–2025

Girls
020040060018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Barb: meaning, origin, and history

Strange, foreign, through Barbara

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Barb means

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

Origin, language, and formation

Barb is used in English.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Barbara.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 3,853 girls were recorded with the name Barb between 1938 and 1972. Its highest annual count was 493 in 1960; its best national rank was #440 in 1960.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning, origin, and language notes draw on the references below.

American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling. Counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted.

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

How common is Barb?

Barb had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1972, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 1972
1 in 349,000
9 of 3,142,796 births
Among girls only
1 in 169,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 1972
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
242,048 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Barb 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 1972 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 242,048 children born in 1972 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Barb. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Barbs were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Barb was born before 1960 — so the typical Barb is around 65 today.

Median birth year
1960
About 65 years old
Biggest decade
1960s
55.5% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
96.2%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
3,646
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1960s — 55.5% of all recorded uses (2,140).

Is Barb 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 1960 (493)
Years since peak
65
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
42.7% average annual change
Best rank ever
#440
1960

Spellings of Barb

Barb is not the most common spelling — Mary is, with 79.9% against Barb's 0.07%.

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.

Where Barb is used

Across 1910–2025, Barb was most concentrated in Minnesota — about 1 in 6,667 girls, against 1 in 27,604 across all states with data. It was least common in New Jersey (1 in —).

015 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Minnesota1 in 6,667
  2. 2South Dakota1 in 9,091
  3. 3Wisconsin1 in 10,000
  4. 4Iowa1 in 12,500
  5. 5Michigan1 in 12,500
  6. 6Ohio1 in 16,667
  7. 7Illinois1 in 20,000
  8. 8Montana1 in 20,000

Shading is the share of that state's recorded girls given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings. Barb has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Notable people named Barb

People whose public names include Barb, backed by Wikidata given-name records and ordered by linked Wikimedia pages. The name may be a middle name.

People data from Wikidata (CC0). Fame is measured, not judged — the order reflects how widely each person is documented, not the U.S. birth records popularity this page is otherwise about.

Barb 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
#440
1960
Peak year
1960
493 that year
First recorded
1938
Last recorded
1972
All-time count
3,853
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Barb

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

BarbieBariBarbraBarrieBarrettBarryBarbiBarriBaranBarbaBarinBarbyBarbarBarkatBaraahBareenBarbeeBarneyBarakahBaraaBarberaBarbeBarbetteBareera

Names with a curve like Barb

Not spelling — timing. These names rose, peaked and faded in the same years as Barb, so they read as being from the same moment even when they look nothing alike.

DebbiDebiLeisaRoxaneGlynisCathiMerriLiseBabetteRobbinPenniLaureen

Sibling names for Barb

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 Barb

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