Brigitte
A feminine name of French origin meaning "exalted one" or "strength".
Name Census estimates that about 8,214 living Americans carry the first name Brigitte. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Brigitte today is around 42 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Brigitte births was 1960 (314 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Brigitte. 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.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Brigitte with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
8.2K
~ 1 in 41,728 Americans
Peak year
1960
314 babies that year
Average age
42
years old
2024 SSA rank
#2,364
Tracked since 1946
Census
Brigitte in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 13,755 people with the first name Brigitte, which placed it at #1,997 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#1,997
National first-name rank
People counted
14K
13,755 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
4.6
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
71.3% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Brigitte
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Brigitte is White at 71.3%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (14.1%) and Black (9.5%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Brigitte described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Brigitte at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White71.3% · 9,806
- Hispanic or Latino14.1% · 1,933
- Black or African American9.5% · 1,302
- Two or more races2.6% · 363
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.2% · 304
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.3% · 47
Popularity
Brigitte: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Brigitte from the 1940s through to the 2020s, spanning 9 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1960s, with 2,530 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1960s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Brigitte 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 Brigitte during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Brigittes live
The SSA's state-level files cover 33 states and territories. California, New York, Texas recorded the most babies named Brigitte, while Nevada, Maine, Iowa recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 177 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Brigitte
The name Brigitte originates from the Irish Gaelic word "brígh", meaning strength or vigor. It is a feminine form of the male name Bríghíd, which is anglicized as Bridget. The name gained popularity after Saint Brigid of Kildare, one of the three patron saints of Ireland, who lived in the 5th century.
Brigitte is a variant spelling of the name that is more commonly used in French and German-speaking regions. In French, the name is pronounced as "bree-zhit", while in German it is pronounced as "bri-gi-teh". The name was particularly popular in medieval Europe, with several historical figures bearing this name.
One of the earliest recorded examples of the name Brigitte is Brigitte of Sweden, a Swedish princess who lived in the 14th century. Another notable historical figure with this name is Brigitte Bardot, the French actress and singer born in 1934, who was a major sex symbol and fashion icon in the 1950s and 1960s.
In the 16th century, Brigitte de Suède, a Swedish princess and Catholic saint, played a significant role in the Catholic revival in Sweden. She was born in 1303 and died in 1373. Around the same time, Brigitte of Göttingen, a German mystic and writer, lived from 1292 to 1351.
In the 19th century, Brigitte Kurenbach, a German painter and illustrator, was born in 1833 and died in 1899. She was known for her illustrations of fairy tales and children's books.
Another notable figure with the name Brigitte is Brigitte Helm, a German actress who starred in the 1927 silent film "Metropolis". She was born in 1906 and died in 1996.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Brigitte
People
Brigitte + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Brigitte 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
Brigitte: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Brigitte?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 8,214 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Brigitte 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 41,728 US residents.
Is Brigitte a common name?
We classify Brigitte as "Rare". It ranks above 97.4% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 9,102 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Brigitte most popular?
The single biggest year for Brigitte was 1960, when 314 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Brigitte is about 42 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Brigitte in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 13,755 people with the name Brigitte, or 4.55 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #1,997 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Brigitte in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Brigitte?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Brigitte appears almost entirely female. Of the 13,751 people counted with this name, 99.9% were female and only a very small share were male. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Brigitte?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Brigitte is White at 71.3%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (14.1%) and Black (9.5%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Brigitte most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Brigitte in the 2020 Census, accounting for 71.3% (9,806 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Brigitte in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Brigitte a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Brigitte 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.
Is Brigitte still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Brigitte in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Brigitte can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
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.
How many Americans are named Brigitte?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.