Delbert
Of Norman French origin, meaning "bright town" or "bright village".
Name Census estimates that about 17,879 living Americans carry the first name Delbert. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Delbert today is around 68 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Delbert births was 1932 (1,038 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Delbert. 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.
Key insights
- • Although Delbert is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 126 girls registered with the name since 1880.
- • The typical person named Delbert is about 68 years old today, placing it firmly among the names of earlier generations. Most living Delberts were born before 1968.
People living today
18K
~ 1 in 19,171 Americans
Peak year
1932
1,038 babies that year
Average age
68
years old
2024 SSA rank
#6,224
Tracked since 1880
Census
Delbert in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 16,747 people with the first name Delbert, which placed it at #1,785 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
#1,785
National first-name rank
People counted
17K
16,747 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
5.5
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
81.4% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Delbert
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Delbert is White at 81.4%. The next largest groups are Black (9.0%) and American Indian/Alaska Native (3.5%). 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 Delbert 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 Delbert at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White81.4% · 13,636
- Black or African American9.0% · 1,514
- American Indian and Alaska Native3.5% · 583
- Two or more races2.9% · 478
- Hispanic or Latino2.3% · 382
- Asian and Pacific Islander0.9% · 154
Gender
Gender distribution for Delbert
Out of the 47,044 babies given the name Delbert since 1880, 99.7% were registered as male. The name sits firmly on the male side of the spectrum, with only a handful of female registrations across the entire dataset.
Delbert as a male name
- Ranked #6,224 in 2024
- 14 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1932 (1,038 births)
Delbert as a female name
- Ranked #7,251 in 1968
- 5 female births in 1968
- Peak: 1925 (10 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Delbert appears almost entirely male. Of the 16,746 people counted with this name, 99.8% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Delbert: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Delbert from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1920s, with 9,736 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1920s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Delbert 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 Delbert during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Delberts live
The SSA's state-level files cover 48 states and territories. Ohio, Illinois, Texas recorded the most babies named Delbert, while Nevada, Delaware, Connecticut recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 862 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Delbert
The name Delbert is of Germanic origin, derived from the elements "dell" meaning valley and "bert" meaning bright or famous. It first appeared in the 8th century among the Franks and later spread to other Germanic tribes.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name is found in the Annales Regni Francorum, a chronicle of Frankish history from the late 8th century, where a nobleman named Delbert is mentioned. The name also appears in various medieval German documents and records from the 9th to 13th centuries.
While not commonly found in ancient texts or religious scriptures, the name Delbert does have a few notable historical figures. One of the earliest was Delbert of Gascony, a 9th-century count and military leader who fought against the Viking invasions in Aquitaine.
In the 11th century, Delbert of Metz was a prominent Benedictine monk and scholar who wrote several theological treatises. A century later, Delbert von Hohenzollern was a German noble and crusader who participated in the Third Crusade under Emperor Frederick Barbarossa.
During the Renaissance, Delbert Gerhard was a German humanist and philosopher who lived from 1466 to 1537. He was known for his works on logic and metaphysics, and his influence on the development of Protestant theology.
In more recent times, Delbert Mann was an American film director born in 1920, best known for his work on movies such as Marty and Separate Tables. He won an Academy Award for Best Director for the 1955 film Marty.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Delbert
People
Delbert + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Delbert as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with D
Other first names starting with D with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Delbert: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Delbert?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 17,879 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Delbert 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 19,171 US residents.
Is Delbert a common name?
We classify Delbert as "Uncommon". It ranks above 98.4% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 47,044 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Delbert most popular?
The single biggest year for Delbert was 1932, when 1,038 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Delbert is about 68 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Delbert in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 16,747 people with the name Delbert, or 5.54 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #1,785 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 Delbert 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 Delbert?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Delbert appears almost entirely male. Of the 16,746 people counted with this name, 99.8% were male and only a very small share were female. 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 Delbert?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Delbert is White at 81.4%. The next largest groups are Black (9.0%) and American Indian/Alaska Native (3.5%). 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 Delbert most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Delbert in the 2020 Census, accounting for 81.4% (13,636 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 Delbert in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Delbert a male name?
Yes, 99.7% of people registered as Delbert in the SSA data are male. 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 Delbert still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Delbert 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 Delbert 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 Americans are named Delbert?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.