Bathsheba
Feminine name of Hebrew origin meaning "daughter of the oath" or "daughter of abundance".
Name Census estimates that about 320 living Americans carry the first name Bathsheba. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Bathsheba today is around 45 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Bathsheba births was 1977 (18 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Bathsheba. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Bathsheba with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
320
~ 1 in 1,071,107 Americans
Peak year
1977
18 babies that year
Average age
45
years old
2023 SSA rank
#13,700
Tracked since 1951
Census
Bathsheba in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 385 people with the first name Bathsheba, which placed it at #24,842 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#24,842
National first-name rank
People counted
385
385 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Black or African American
57.4% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Bathsheba
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Bathsheba is Black at 57.4%. The next largest groups are White (19.0%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (10.4%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Bathsheba described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Bathsheba at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Black or African American57.4% · 221
- White19.0% · 73
- Asian and Pacific Islander10.4% · 40
- Hispanic or Latino7.8% · 30
- Two or more races4.2% · 16
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.3% · 5
Popularity
Bathsheba: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Bathsheba from the 1950s through to the 2020s, spanning 8 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1970s, with 97 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1970s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Bathsheba by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Bathsheba during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Bathshebas live
Origin
Meaning and history of Bathsheba
The name Bathsheba is a Hebrew name meaning "daughter of the oath" or "seventh daughter." It is derived from the Hebrew words "bath" meaning "daughter" and "sheba" meaning "oath" or "seven."
The name is most famously associated with Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite, who was seduced by King David according to the Hebrew Bible. The story is recounted in the Second Book of Samuel, where David sees Bathsheba bathing and becomes infatuated with her. This leads to a series of events involving adultery and murder.
In the biblical account, Bathsheba's husband Uriah is killed in battle, and David takes Bathsheba as his wife. Their first child dies as a punishment from God, but their second child, Solomon, later becomes king of Israel. Bathsheba herself is depicted as a wise and influential figure in the court of King David.
Outside of the Bible, one of the earliest recorded uses of the name Bathsheba was in the 1st century AD, when it was mentioned in the Talmud, a central text of Rabbinic Judaism.
Throughout history, several notable women have borne the name Bathsheba. One of the earliest was Bathsheba Boners (c. 1600-1670), an influential Puritan woman in colonial Massachusetts. Another was Bathsheba Spooner (1746-1778), the first wife of American Revolutionary War officer and politician Paul Revere.
In the 19th century, Bathsheba Everdene was the protagonist of the novel "Far from the Madding Crowd" by Thomas Hardy, published in 1874. A more recent example is Bathsheba Doran (born 1972), an American playwright and screenwriter known for her work on films like "Moneyball" and "Erin Brockovich."
Over time, variations and derived forms of the name have emerged, such as Bathshua, Batsheva, and Batsheba, but the original Hebrew form Bathsheba remains the most widely used.
People
Bathsheba + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Bathsheba as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with B
Other first names starting with B with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Bathsheba: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Bathsheba?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 320 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Bathsheba going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 1,071,107 US residents.
Is Bathsheba a common name?
We classify Bathsheba as "Very Rare". It ranks above 79.9% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 365 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Bathsheba most popular?
The single biggest year for Bathsheba was 1977, when 18 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Bathsheba is about 45 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Bathsheba in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 385 people with the name Bathsheba, or 0.13 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #24,842 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Bathsheba in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Bathsheba?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Bathsheba appears almost entirely female. Of the 388 people counted with this name, 99.2% were female and only a very small share were male. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Bathsheba?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Bathsheba is Black at 57.4%. The next largest groups are White (19.0%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (10.4%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Bathsheba most often in the Census?
Black is the largest reported group for people named Bathsheba in the 2020 Census, accounting for 57.4% (221 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Bathsheba in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Bathsheba a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Bathsheba in the SSA data are female. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Bathsheba still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Bathsheba in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Bathsheba can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people are named Bathsheba?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.