Roberto

172,377 people in America carry this name — ranked #324 of 923.

Carried mostly by the Millennials.

Say it ruh BEHR toh

3 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

R AH0 B EH1 R T OW0 — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 172,377 2020 Census
  • Rank #324 Common
  • Per 100,000 57.1 about 1 in 1,923 people

The meaning and origin of Roberto

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.

Roberto through the years

110,631 babies were given this name since 1897. The busiest year was 1991, with 2,133 of them.

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

Most people carrying it were born in the 1990s. 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 Roberto

Three syllables already, so a short middle name keeps the whole from running long.

Better avoided

  • Roberto Robert — same opening
  • Roberto Richard — same opening
  • Roberto Ronald — same opening

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

Roberto has more than halved in three decades. The people carrying it belong mostly to the Millennials.

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

99.8% men
415 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.

Spellings of Roberto

Roberto is how 5.3% of them spell it — 3,243,132 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

  • Rob Scottish
  • Rab Scottish
  • Bob English
  • Robin Fr.|Eng
  • Ruprat Slov
  • Rupert Ger.|Eng
  • Rubert Italian
  • Roibin Irish
  • Robina Scottish
  • Robert Eng.|Fr
  • Robers French
  • Robbie Scottish
  • Ruperto Italian
  • Rudbert German

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.

Who answers to it now

  • White alone (non-Hispanic) — 5.7%
  • Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 1.1%
  • Hispanic or Latino origin — 90.3%
  • Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 2.5%

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.

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 Teutonic origin