Name Awesome

Debby

Girls' name

Bee, through Deborah

Debby has been given to 9,697 babies in the U.S. since 1923. 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 1959, with 890 recorded.

Babies named Debby, 2016

1 in 459,000

Debby over time, 1880–2025

Girls
02505007501K18801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Debby: meaning, origin, and history

Bee, through Deborah

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Debby means

Debby belongs to the name family reached through Debby → Deborah → דְּבוֹרָה. Its meaning is “bee”.

Origin, language, and formation

Debby is used in English.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Deborah and דְּבוֹרָה.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 9,697 girls were recorded with the name Debby between 1923 and 2016. Its highest annual count was 890 in 1959; its best national rank was #309 in 1959.

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 Debby?

Debby had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2016, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2016
1 in 459,000
8 of 3,669,531 births
Among girls only
1 in 221,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2016
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
317,942 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Debby 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 2016 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 317,942 children born in 2016 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Debby. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Debbys were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Debby was born before 1959 — so the typical Debby is around 66 today.

Median birth year
1959
About 66 years old
Biggest decade
1950s
46.0% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
2.2%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
8,839
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1950s — 46.0% of all recorded uses (4,460).

Is Debby 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 1959 (890)
Years since peak
66
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
36.3% average annual change
Best rank ever
#309
1959

Spellings of Debby

Debby is not the most common spelling — Debra is, with 63.6% against Debby'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.

Where Debby is used

Across 1910–2025, Debby was most concentrated in Oregon — about 1 in 11,111 girls, against 1 in 20,779 across all states with data. It was least common in Mississippi (1 in 100,000).

19 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Oregon1 in 11,111
  2. 2Washington1 in 11,111
  3. 3Iowa1 in 14,286
  4. 4Illinois1 in 14,286
  5. 5Indiana1 in 14,286
  6. 6Michigan1 in 14,286
  7. 7Missouri1 in 14,286
  8. 8Ohio1 in 14,286

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

Debby around the world

Where Debby 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
    2000–2000
    #3,247
    in 2000
  • Scotland
    1982–1989
    #576
    in 1989
  • France
    1957–1999
    #4,612
    in 1999
  • Canada
    1991–1998
    #2,528
    in 1998
  • South Australia
    1957–1984
    #661
    in 1984

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics, National Records of Scotland, Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques, Statistics Canada and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). ONS, NRS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. StatCan data under Statistics Canada Open Licence. CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Notable people named Debby

People whose public names include Debby, 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.

Debby in other languages

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

DebbiDebbie

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

Debby 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
#309
1959
Peak year
1959
890 that year
First recorded
1923
Last recorded
2016
All-time count
9,697
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Debby

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

BobbyLibbyDeboraDebbiDebrahDebiDebbraGabbyDebbieDebanhiAbbyDebraDeberaDebieDebDebroahDebbeDeborhaDebanyDebaraDebriaDebarDebyRubby

Names with a curve like Debby

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

KathiLuanneGaylaVickeyGeralynPamalaDeniceLuannLaureenRoxannSuzanTerese

Sibling names for Debby

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 Debby

Top names of 1959, Debby's peak yearThe 1950s in fullOther names that peaked in 1959Girls' names starting with D