Bathsheba
Feminine name of Hebrew origin meaning "daughter of the oath" or "daughter of abundance".
Name Census estimates that about 320 living Americans carry the first name Bathsheba. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Bathsheba today is around 45 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Bathsheba births was 1977 (18 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Bathsheba. 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.
People living today
320
~ 1 in 1,071,107 Americans
Peak year
1977
18 babies that year
Average age
45
years old
2023 SSA rank
#13,700
Tracked since 1951
Popularity
Bathsheba: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Bathsheba from the 1950s through to the 2020s, spanning 8 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1970s, with 97 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1970s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Bathsheba 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 Bathsheba during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Bathshebas live
Origin
Meaning and history of Bathsheba
The name Bathsheba is a Hebrew name meaning "daughter of the oath" or "seventh daughter." It is derived from the Hebrew words "bath" meaning "daughter" and "sheba" meaning "oath" or "seven."
The name is most famously associated with Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite, who was seduced by King David according to the Hebrew Bible. The story is recounted in the Second Book of Samuel, where David sees Bathsheba bathing and becomes infatuated with her. This leads to a series of events involving adultery and murder.
In the biblical account, Bathsheba's husband Uriah is killed in battle, and David takes Bathsheba as his wife. Their first child dies as a punishment from God, but their second child, Solomon, later becomes king of Israel. Bathsheba herself is depicted as a wise and influential figure in the court of King David.
Outside of the Bible, one of the earliest recorded uses of the name Bathsheba was in the 1st century AD, when it was mentioned in the Talmud, a central text of Rabbinic Judaism.
Throughout history, several notable women have borne the name Bathsheba. One of the earliest was Bathsheba Boners (c. 1600-1670), an influential Puritan woman in colonial Massachusetts. Another was Bathsheba Spooner (1746-1778), the first wife of American Revolutionary War officer and politician Paul Revere.
In the 19th century, Bathsheba Everdene was the protagonist of the novel "Far from the Madding Crowd" by Thomas Hardy, published in 1874. A more recent example is Bathsheba Doran (born 1972), an American playwright and screenwriter known for her work on films like "Moneyball" and "Erin Brockovich."
Over time, variations and derived forms of the name have emerged, such as Bathshua, Batsheva, and Batsheba, but the original Hebrew form Bathsheba remains the most widely used.
People
Bathsheba + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Bathsheba as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with B
Other first names starting with B with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Bathsheba: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Bathsheba?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 320 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Bathsheba 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 1,071,107 US residents.
Is Bathsheba a common name?
We classify Bathsheba as "Very Rare". It ranks above 79.9% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 365 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Bathsheba most popular?
The single biggest year for Bathsheba was 1977, when 18 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Bathsheba is about 45 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
Is Bathsheba a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Bathsheba in the SSA data are female. 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.
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.