Roberto
A masculine given name of Italian origin meaning "bright fame".
Name Census estimates that about 99,317 living Americans carry the first name Roberto. It is a predominantly male name (99.3% of registrations). The average person named Roberto today is around 38 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Roberto births was 1991 (2,133 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Roberto. 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 Roberto with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Roberto is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 834 girls registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
99K
~ 1 in 3,451 Americans
Peak year
1991
2,133 babies that year
Average age
38
years old
2024 SSA rank
#553
Tracked since 1897
Census
Roberto in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 172,375 people with the first name Roberto, which placed it at #324 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
#324
National first-name rank
People counted
172K
172,375 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
57.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Hispanic or Latino
90.3% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Roberto
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Roberto is Hispanic at 90.3%. The next largest groups are White (5.7%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (2.5%). 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 Roberto 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 Roberto at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Hispanic or Latino90.3% · 155,739
- White5.7% · 9,843
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.5% · 4,365
- Black or African American1.1% · 1,811
- Two or more races0.2% · 397
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.1% · 220
Gender
Gender distribution for Roberto
Out of the 112,951 babies given the name Roberto since 1880, 99.3% were registered as male. The name sits firmly on the male side of the spectrum, with only a handful of female registrations across the entire dataset.
Roberto as a male name
- Ranked #553 in 2024
- 538 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1991 (2,118 births)
Roberto as a female name
- Ranked #12,454 in 2007
- 9 female births in 2007
- Peak: 1988 (24 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Roberto appears almost entirely male. Of the 172,377 people counted with this name, 99.8% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Roberto: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Roberto from the 1890s through to the 2020s, spanning 14 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1990s, with 20,181 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1990s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Roberto 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 Roberto during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Robertos live
The SSA's state-level files cover 42 states and territories. Texas, California, New York recorded the most babies named Roberto, while Mississippi, Delaware, Hawaii recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 2,596 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Roberto
The name Roberto is derived from the Germanic name Robert, which in turn comes from the old Germanic words "hruod" meaning "fame" and "berht" meaning "bright". The name Roberto is the Spanish and Italian form of Robert.
Roberto first appeared in historical records in the 8th century during the reign of the Frankish king Charlemagne. It was a popular name among the Normans who spread it throughout Europe after their conquest of England in 1066.
One of the earliest recorded examples of the name Roberto is Roberto Guiscardo, a Norman adventurer born around 1015 who became Duke of Apulia and Calabria in southern Italy. He played a key role in the Norman conquest of southern Italy and Sicily.
Another notable historical figure was Roberto d'Angiò, born in 1278, who was the King of Naples from 1309 until his death in 1343. He was a skilled military leader and patron of the arts.
In the 15th century, Roberto Valturio (1405-1475) was an Italian engineer and writer who authored one of the first printed books on military technology and tactics.
Roberto Bellarmine (1542-1621) was an Italian Jesuit and a cardinal of the Catholic Church. He was one of the most important figures in the Counter-Reformation and is a Doctor of the Church.
Roberto Clemente (1934-1972) was a Puerto Rican professional baseball player who spent his entire 18-year career with the Pittsburgh Pirates. He was an exceptional hitter and outfielder, and the first Latin American player to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Roberto
People
Roberto + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Roberto as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with R
Other first names starting with R with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Roberto: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Roberto?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 99,317 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Roberto 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 3,451 US residents.
Is Roberto a common name?
We classify Roberto as "Uncommon". It ranks above 99.5% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 112,951 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Roberto most popular?
The single biggest year for Roberto was 1991, when 2,133 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Roberto is about 38 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Roberto in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 172,375 people with the name Roberto, or 57.07 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #324 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 Roberto 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 Roberto?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Roberto appears almost entirely male. Of the 172,377 people counted with this name, 99.8% were male and only a very small share were female. 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 Roberto?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Roberto is Hispanic at 90.3%. The next largest groups are White (5.7%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (2.5%). 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 Roberto most often in the Census?
Hispanic is the largest reported group for people named Roberto in the 2020 Census, accounting for 90.3% (155,739 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 Roberto in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Roberto a male name?
Yes, 99.3% of people registered as Roberto in the SSA data are male. 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 Roberto still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Roberto 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 Roberto 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 people are named Roberto?
Our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers how many Americans are named Roberto at a glance, with the living-bearer count up front.