Name Awesome

Betsey

Girls' name

My God is an oath, through Elizabeth

Betsey has been given to 2,481 babies in the U.S. since 1884. 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 1942, with 62 recorded.

Babies named Betsey, 2022

1 in 677,000

Betsey over time, 1880–2025

Girls
02040608018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Betsey: meaning, origin, and history

My God is an oath, through Elizabeth

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Betsey means

Betsey belongs to the name family reached through Betsey → Elizabeth. Its meaning is “my God is an oath”.

Origin, language, and formation

Betsey is used in English.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Elizabeth.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 2,481 girls were recorded with the name Betsey between 1884 and 2022. Its highest annual count was 62 in 1942; its best national rank was #725 in 1889.

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 Betsey?

Betsey had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2022, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2022
1 in 677,000
5 of 3,385,755 births
Among girls only
1 in 328,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2022
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
469,366 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Betsey 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 2022 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 469,366 children born in 2022 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Betsey. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Betseys were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Betsey was born before 1950 — so the typical Betsey is around 75 today.

Median birth year
1950
About 75 years old
Biggest decade
1940s
20.0% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
3.2%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
1,253
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1940s — 20.0% of all recorded uses (495).

Is Betsey 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 1942 (62)
Years since peak
83
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
32.8% average annual change
Best rank ever
#725
1889

Spellings of Betsey

Betsey is not the most common spelling — Betty is, with 79.6% against Betsey's 0.20%.

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 Betsey is used

Across 1910–2025, Betsey was most concentrated in Massachusetts — about 1 in 20,000 girls, against 1 in 124,232 across all states with data. It was least common in Pennsylvania (1 in —).

05 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Massachusetts1 in 20,000
  2. 2Connecticut1 in 50,000
  3. 3New York1 in 50,000
  4. 4California1 in —
  5. 5New Jersey1 in —
  6. 6Ohio1 in —
  7. 7Pennsylvania1 in —

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. Betsey has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Betsey around the world

Where Betsey 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.

  • England & Wales
    2002–2019
    #4,686
    in 2019

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics. ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0.

Notable people named Betsey

People whose public names include Betsey, 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.

Betsey in other languages

Cross-language forms and variants of Betsey. Linked forms have their own page here.

BetsiBetsy

Variant forms from Wikidata (CC0). Most are used mainly outside the United States; U.S. birth records statistics cover US usage only.

Betsey 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
#725
1889
Peak year
1942
62 that year
First recorded
1884
Last recorded
2022
All-time count
2,481
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Betsey

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

BethelBetinaDaiseyRamseyBetsabeBetzyBettinaJerseyBethanieLinseyMaiseyBetzaidaBethannJoseyKinseyKasseyBetsaidaBetaniaRoseyBettieHalseyCasseyBethaniBetti

Names with a curve like Betsey

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

JimmyLanellJonellThomasineNinfaMarnaGeraldArmidaJohnnyLorrettaJoyeJay

Sibling names for Betsey

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 Betsey

Top names of 1942, Betsey's peak yearThe 1940s in fullOther names that peaked in 1889Girls' names starting with B