Robert

2,759,339 people in America carry this name — ranked #5 of 923.

Its American moment came before the war.

Say it RAH burt

2 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

R AA1 B ER0 T — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 2,759,339 2020 Census
  • Per 100,000 913.6 about 1 in 120 people

What Robert means and where it comes from

Teutonic in origin, reading literally as “bright fame”.

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.

How often Robert has been given

4,849,738 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 1947, with 91,884 of them.

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

Most people carrying it were born in the 1950s. 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.

What goes well after Robert

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

Better avoided

  • Robert Richard — same opening
  • Robert Thomas — runs together
  • Robert Timothy — 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.

Short forms of Robert

Short forms as recorded in a 19th-century glossary of Christian names, so the list is old rather than complete.

A name from before the war

The year most children were called Robert was 1947. Names of that age tend to come back once their owners are grandparents.

Is Robert a boy's or a girl's name?

99.9% men
2,735 women

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

Who carries it today

  • White alone (non-Hispanic) — 82.7%
  • Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 7.2%
  • Hispanic or Latino origin — 6.3%
  • Two or more races — 2.4%
  • Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 1.0%
  • American Indian and Alaska Native alone — 0.5%

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 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.

How Robert is spelled

Robert is how 90% of them spell it — 3,070,755 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.

Where the name Robert is most common in the US

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

  • Rhode Island ×1.7
  • Delaware ×1.6
  • the District of Columbia ×1.5
  • West Virginia ×1.4
  • Massachusetts ×1.4

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.

Try it First-Year Costs

Open First-Year Costs 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 Teutonic origin