Bridget

81,356 people in America carry this name — ranked #648 of 923.

Carried mostly by Generation X.

Say it BRIH juht

2 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

B R IH1 JH AH0 T — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 81,356 2020 Census
  • As a surname 319 ranked #66,829 the other way round

What Bridget means and where it comes from

Celtic in origin, reading literally as “strength”.

Origins are a matter of scholarly argument rather than record, and a name can be traced more than one way. We state one reading and say where it came from.

Bridget name popularity by year

90,599 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 1973, with 2,771 of them.

80 90 00 10 20 30 40 50 60 70s 80 90 00 10 20

Most people carrying it were born in the 1970s. It has been given less often of late.

Counted from Social Security card applications, so it covers births registered in the United States and leaves out names given to fewer than five babies in a year.

Middle names that fit Bridget

Two syllables sit with almost anything — the join matters more than the length.

Better avoided

  • Bridget Barbara — same opening
  • Bridget Brenda — same opening
  • Bridget Teresa — runs together

Chosen by sound from the pronouncing dictionary, then ordered by how often the name is given. None of it is a rule — the ear decides.

Going quiet

Bridget has more than halved in three decades. The people carrying it belong mostly to Generation X.

Boys or girls: who is called Bridget?

0.1% men
81,259 women

As recorded on census returns, not as anyone thinks the name ought to be used.

The likeliest full names

The census counts first names and surnames separately and never together, so these are estimates: how often the two halves would meet if they paired at random. They do not — names cluster by community — so read them as an order of magnitude, not a headcount.

Who carries it today

  • White alone (non-Hispanic) — 80.2%
  • Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 10.0%
  • Hispanic or Latino origin — 5.8%
  • Two or more races — 2.6%
  • Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 0.9%

Categories are how people answered the census — a fact about the bearers, not a property of the name. Conclusions are ours, not the Census Bureau’s.

The states where Bridget is most common

In Massachusetts the name is given 1.7 times as often as it is across the country.

  • Massachusetts ×1.7
  • Louisiana ×1.7
  • Minnesota ×1.7
  • Illinois ×1.5
  • Pennsylvania ×1.5

Measured against the state's own share of births since 1960, so a small state can lead a big one. Counted from Social Security card applications.

Spellings of Bridget

Bridget is how 86% of them spell it — 95,107 people answer to the sound.

Each spelling is its own census entry — the counts never overlap, so the shares are of the group, not of the country.

Names about as common

The nearest entries above and below by number of people.

The same name elsewhere

  • Pikka Lapp
  • Pikke Lapp
  • Brita Swedish
  • Bride Scottish
  • Brien French
  • Birre Esth
  • Pirrit Esth
  • Pirket Lapp
  • Britle Lett
  • Brieuc Breton
  • Brigida Italian
  • Brigide French
  • Brietta Ir
  • Berzske Lett

Forms of one name traced to the same root. Spellings are as the glossary printed them, so some look older than the versions in use today.

Names built the same way as Bridget

Nothing else in the file ends on the same sound — a rare thing, and useful if you want a first name nobody will echo.

Same rhythm — 2 syllables, stress on the first

Matched on phonemes, not spelling, so the lists follow the ear rather than the page.

Try it Full-Name Estimator

Add a surname and see how many Americans carry the two together.

Open Full-Name Estimator on its own page

Where this page gets its numbers

  • Counts, ranks and shares: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census tabulations of first and last names occurring 100 or more times. Percentages, bands and groupings are our own arithmetic — the conclusions are ours, not the Bureau’s.
  • Pronunciation, syllables and rhyme groups: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, Carnegie Mellon University. The plain-English respelling is ours.
  • Origins and the forms a name takes in other languages: Charlotte Yonge, History of Christian Names, 1884 — a public-domain work. Scholarship has moved on since, so read it as one reading of a name, not the last word.

Below a hundred people we publish no figure at all — the same threshold the Census Bureau applies to us. What each source covers
Other names of Celtic origin