Bessye
Girls' nameMeaning not yet documented
Bessye has been given to 105 babies in the U.S. since 1903. 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 1916, with 13 recorded.
Babies named Bessye, 1946
1 in 639,000
Bessye over time, 1880–2025
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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.
How common is Bessye?
Bessye had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1946, the last year it was published.
- Among all babies, 1946
- 1 in 639,000
- 5 of 3,195,175 births
- Among girls only
- 1 in 314,000
- <0.01% of girls
- Rank, 1946
- Unranked
- Fewer than 5 uses
- Coin-flip room size
- 442,946 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Bessye sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 1946 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 442,946 children born in 1946 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Bessye. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Bessyes were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Bessye was born before 1918 — so the typical Bessye is around 107 today.
- Biggest decade
- 1910s
- 51.4% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 39.0%
- Spread across generations
- Recorded since 1950
- 0
- People you could plausibly meet
1910s — 51.4% of all recorded uses (54).
Is Bessye 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 1916 (13)
- Years since peak
- 109
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Volatile
- 35.4% average annual change
Spellings of Bessye
Bessye is not the most common spelling — Bessie is, with 32.8% against Bessye's 0.02%.
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.
Bessye by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
Names similar to Bessye
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Bessye
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.