Bobbie
A diminutive form of the masculine name Robert, derived from Old German meaning "bright fame".
Name Census estimates that about 54,243 living Americans carry the first name Bobbie. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 82.8% of registrations being female. The average person named Bobbie today is around 62 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Bobbie births was 1934 (2,850 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Bobbie. 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 Bobbie with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Compared to the 1930s, recent registration numbers for Bobbie have dropped to less than 5% of what they once were.
People living today
54K
~ 1 in 6,319 Americans
Peak year
1934
2,850 babies that year
Average age
62
years old
2023 SSA rank
#2,661
Tracked since 1883
Census
Bobbie in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 54,719 people with the first name Bobbie, which placed it at #845 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
#845
National first-name rank
People counted
55K
54,719 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
18.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
68.6% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Bobbie
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Bobbie is White at 68.6%. The next largest groups are Black (23.6%) and Two or More Races (3.2%). 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 Bobbie 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 Bobbie at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White68.6% · 37,538
- Black or African American23.6% · 12,919
- Two or more races3.2% · 1,742
- Hispanic or Latino2.9% · 1,576
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.1% · 607
- Asian and Pacific Islander0.6% · 337
Gender
Gender distribution for Bobbie
Bobbie leans heavily female at 82.8% of total registrations, but 18,416 boys have also been registered with the name over the years, giving it a small but present crossover presence.
Bobbie as a male name
- Ranked #11,000 in 2023
- 6 male births in 2023
- Peak: 1931 (751 births)
Bobbie as a female name
- Ranked #2,661 in 2024
- 65 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1934 (2,190 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Bobbie leans strongly female. 48,842 people counted with this name were female (89.3%), compared with 5,875 male bearers (10.7%).
Popularity
Bobbie: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Bobbie from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1930s, with 25,706 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1930s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Bobbie 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 Bobbie during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Bobbies live
The SSA's state-level files cover 50 states and territories. Texas, Mississippi, Tennessee recorded the most babies named Bobbie, while New Hampshire, Vermont, Delaware recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 1,980 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Bobbie
The given name Bobbie is a diminutive form of the name Robert, which has its origins in the Germanic language family. Robert is derived from the Germanic words "hrod" meaning "fame" and "berht" meaning "bright." The name is believed to have emerged during the medieval period in Europe.
Bobbie is a modern variant of the nickname Bob, which was originally a shortened form of the name Robert. The earliest recorded use of the name Bobbie dates back to the late 18th century, particularly in English-speaking regions such as Britain and the United States.
One of the earliest historical figures known to have borne the name Bobbie was Robert "Bobbie" Shafto, an English politician and landowner who lived in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. He was the subject of a popular English folk song titled "Bobbie Shafto's Gone to Sea."
Another notable figure with the name Bobbie was Bobbie Rosenfeld (1904-1969), a Canadian athlete and one of the most successful female track and field competitors of her time. She won Olympic gold medals in the 4x100m relay and the discus throw at the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics.
In the field of literature, Bobbie Ann Mason (born 1940) is an American novelist and short story writer known for her works that explore the lives of ordinary people in the American South and Midwest. Her novels include "In Country" and "Shiloh and Other Stories."
Sir Bobbie Trayler-Bellew (1927-2009) was a British military officer and cricketer who served in the Royal Navy and played first-class cricket for the Combined Services and Oxford University teams in the 1940s and 1950s.
Bobbie Gentry (born 1942) is an American singer-songwriter and novelist, best known for her hit songs "Ode to Billie Joe" and "Fancy" in the late 1960s. She is also the author of several novels, including "Ode to Billie Joe" and "Chickasaw County Child."
While the name Bobbie has been predominantly used as a masculine name throughout history, it has also been adopted as a feminine name in more recent times, particularly in English-speaking countries.
People
Bobbie + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Bobbie 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
Bobbie: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Bobbie?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 54,243 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Bobbie 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 6,319 US residents.
Is Bobbie a common name?
We classify Bobbie as "Uncommon". It ranks above 99.2% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 106,952 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Bobbie most popular?
The single biggest year for Bobbie was 1934, when 2,850 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Bobbie is about 62 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Bobbie in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 54,719 people with the name Bobbie, or 18.12 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #845 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 Bobbie 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 Bobbie?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Bobbie leans strongly female. 48,842 people counted with this name were female (89.3%), compared with 5,875 male bearers (10.7%). 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 Bobbie?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Bobbie is White at 68.6%. The next largest groups are Black (23.6%) and Two or More Races (3.2%). 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 Bobbie most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Bobbie in the 2020 Census, accounting for 68.6% (37,538 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 Bobbie in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Bobbie a female name?
Yes, 82.8% of people registered as Bobbie 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 Bobbie still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Bobbie 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 Bobbie 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 have Bobbie as a first name?
If you just want to know how many Americans are named Bobbie, HowManyOfMe.org gives you the headline number in one glance.