How popular is the baby name Rebecca in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Use the popularity graph and data table below to find out! Plus, see all the blog posts that mention the name Rebecca.

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Popularity of the baby name Rebecca


Posts that mention the name Rebecca

Alabama quadruplets: Lainey, Kali, Lennon, Koen

quadruplets and stork

In May of 2024, Alabama couple Rebecca and Lavareis Bryant welcomed quadruplets that were actually two sets of twins. (The quads born recently in Louisiana, Texas, and Massachusetts were also two sets of twins.)

The Bryants’ twin boys and identical twin girls weighed less than two pounds each when they were born at 23 weeks and 4 days gestation — 115 days before their expected due date. They arrived so early, in fact, that they’re now recognized as the most premature surviving quadruplets by Guinness World Records.

What were they named?

Lainey (girl), Kali (girl), Lennon (boy), and Koen (boy).

What are your thoughts on these names?

P.S. The Bryants also have three older children named Kendall, Laikyn, and Kainen.

Sources:

Image: Adapted from Multiplication (1905) by Gordon Ross

Baby name story: Jennifer Rebecca

Frederica von Stade's album "Song Recital" (1978)
Frederica von Stade album

Learning that Carrie-Anne Moss was not named after the song “Jenny Rebecca” led me to discover a baby who was named after “Jenny Rebecca.”

Before we get to that, though, let’s start with the fact that the song itself was named after a baby named Jenny Rebecca.

It was written by composer and lyricist Carol Hall for her friends Ilene and William Goldman upon the birth of their first child, Jenny Rebecca, circa 1962. The lyrics begin, “Jenny Rebecca, four days old / How do you like the world so far?”

The song was recorded first by Barbra Streisand in 1965, then later by other artists.

One of those other artists was classical singer Frederica von Stade, who recorded “Jenny Rebecca” [vid] in December of 1977 for her album Song Recital (1978). According to the album’s liner notes, von Stade was “so fond of [the song] that she named her first child, born just forty-eight hours after this record was recorded, Jenny Rebecca.”

Her daughter’s full first name was actually Jennifer, which makes sense, given that Jennifer was the top girl name in the nation at that time. (It ranked #1 for fifteen years straight, from 1970 to 1984.)

P.S. William Goldman was the screenwriter/novelist behind Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Princess Bride.

Sources:

How did Carrie-Anne Moss get her name?

Canadian actress Carrie-Anne Moss
Carrie-Anne Moss

Canadian actress Carrie-Anne Moss, who portrayed the character Trinity in all four Matrix movies, was born to parents Barbara and Melvyn Moss of British Columbia in August of 1967.

Why was she named Carrie-Anne?

Her mother named her after the song “Carrie-Anne,” by the Hollies. It was a last-minute change. She almost got named Jenny Rebecca, after a Barbra Streisand hit of a previous summer. A disaster narrowly averted.

“Carrie Anne,” which was released in May of 1967, peaked at #9 on Billboard‘s U.S. Hot 100 chart a couple of weeks before Moss was born. (Billboard didn’t launch a Canadian Hot 100 chart until mid-2007.)

“Jenny Rebecca,” on the other hand, was never released as a single. But it was the third track on Streisand’s best-selling album My Name Is Barbra (1965).

Sources:

Image: Adapted from Carrie-Anne Moss at Peabody’s “Marvel’s Jessica Jones” Night by Jana Lynn French/Peabody under CC BY 2.0.

Popular baby names in Colorado, 1997

Flag of Colorado
Flag of Colorado

Back in 1997, the western U.S. state of Colorado welcomed 56,505 babies.

What were the most popular names among these babies? Hannah and Jacob, according to data from the Health Statistics Section of Colorado’s Department of Public Health and Environment.

The state also revealed the top names within each of its three largest racial/ethnic groups, which it defined as “White/non-Hispanic,” “White/Hispanic,” and “Black.”

Number of babiesTop girl nameTop boy name
White/non-Hispanic38,729 (69%)HannahJacob
White/Hispanic12,951 (23%)JessicaJose
Black2,582 (5%)JasmineIsaiah

Here are Colorado’s top 50 girl names (overall) and top 50 boy names (overall) of 1997:

Girl names

  1. Hannah
  2. Emily
  3. Jessica
  4. Sarah
  5. Madison
  6. Samantha
  7. Taylor
  8. Alexandra
  9. Ashley
  10. Megan
  11. Elizabeth
  12. Rachel
  13. Alyssa
  14. Alexis
  15. Lauren
  16. Emma
  17. Kayla
  18. Morgan
  19. Amanda
  20. Brianna
  21. Jennifer
  22. Jordan
  23. Abigail
  24. Victoria
  25. Nicole
  26. Brittany
  27. Rebecca
  28. Danielle
  29. Katherine
  30. Sierra
  31. Anna
  32. Mariah
  33. Olivia
  34. Amber
  35. Sydney
  36. Stephanie
  37. Jasmine
  38. Brooke
  39. Haley
  40. Maria
  41. Kaitlyn
  42. Gabrielle
  43. Savannah
  44. Allison
  45. Marissa
  46. Bailey
  47. Courtney
  48. Sara
  49. Erin
  50. Mackenzie

Boy names

  1. Jacob
  2. Michael
  3. Matthew
  4. Joshua
  5. Austin
  6. Tyler
  7. Andrew
  8. Christopher
  9. Nicholas
  10. Brandon
  11. Daniel
  12. Ryan
  13. Joseph
  14. Zachary
  15. David
  16. Alexander
  17. Anthony
  18. John
  19. James
  20. Benjamin
  21. Kyle
  22. Samuel
  23. William
  24. Justin
  25. Jonathan
  26. Dylan
  27. Christian
  28. Jordan
  29. Cody
  30. Robert
  31. Nathan
  32. Aaron
  33. Thomas
  34. Eric
  35. Connor
  36. Cameron
  37. Jose
  38. Noah
  39. Adam
  40. Logan
  41. Isaiah
  42. Sean
  43. Gabriel
  44. Caleb
  45. Jack
  46. Cole
  47. Kevin
  48. Trevor
  49. Ethan
  50. Ian

How do these rankings stack up against the U.S. Social Security Administration’s 1997 rankings for Colorado?

The boy names look similar, but there are two significant discrepancies among the girl names: Alexandra ranked 11 spots lower (19th vs. 8th) and Gabrielle ranked 33 spots lower (75th vs. 42nd) on the federal government’s list.

Other names bestowed in Colorado in 1997 included “Elway, Jamaica, and Mars for baby boys, and October, November, Paradise, and Rejoice for baby girls.”

Elway was no doubt inspired by John Elway, the longtime Denver Broncos quarterback who was about to lead the team to its first Super Bowl victory (in January of 1998).

Speaking of Colorado baby names with historical significance…here are posts about Denver (b. 1859), Colorado (b. 1859), Salida (b. 1881), and Silver Dollar (b. 1889).

Update, Nov. 2025: I recently stumbled upon a newspaper article that listed the top 10 names per gender among Colorado’s Hispanic and Black babies of 1997.

These were the top 10 girl names and 10 boy names among Colorado’s Hispanic babies:

Girl names, HispanicBoy names, Hispanic
1. Jessica
2. Maria
3. Jennifer
4. Jasmine
5. Alexis
6. Alyssa
7. Mariah
8. Alexandra
9. Angelica
10. Stephanie		1. Jose
2. Luis
3. Jesus
4. Daniel
5. Juan
6. David
7. Carlos
8. Alejandro
9. Michael
10. Anthony

And these were the top 10 girl names and 10 boy names among Colorado’s Black babies:

Girl names, BlackBoy names, Black
1. Jasmine
2. Taylor
3. Alexis
4. Ashley
5. Brianna
6. Destiny
7. Danielle
8. Dominique
9. Imani
10. Aaliyah		1. Isaiah
2. Elijah
3. Malik
4. Brandon
5. Jordan
6. Michael
7. David
8. Joshua
9. James
10. Aaron

Sources:

Image: Adapted from Flag of Colorado (public domain)