Babs
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in English: A diminutive of the female given name Barbara
A female name· listed as female by the registers that count names by sex
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 18 countries · latest register: Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register), 2002
/bæbz/(recorded in a dictionary) English · from Wiktionary
Babs is a female given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Nigeria than in any other country.
- NLNetherlands1 in 23K(measured from records)
- ATAustria≈1 in 46Kfew records
- NGNigeria≈1 in 51Kfew records
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Countries with no figure are shown too: flat where a national register lists the name without counting it, hatched where only our records hold it. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Nigeria (inferred from the name graph)
- Record sources
- 185 (measured from records)
- 1 in 23K (inferred from the name graph)
≈4,200 people, est.
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Netherlands
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)A diminutive of the female given name Barbara.
Cited for this meaning 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 15 languages in the etymology graph.
How Babs is read
(measured from records)Babs is one spelling over 3 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- English62%
A diminutive of the female given name Barbara.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- German9.2%
weibl. Vom., Koseform von Barbara, auch englisch [bsebs].
as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
- Dutch7.6%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Babs in Dutch.
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Babs counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NG Nigeria | ≈4,200 est. | ≈1 in 51K | listed | Babs | 37 |
| NL Netherlands | 751 | 1 in 23K | 751 | Babs | 44 |
| DE Germany | ≈530 est. | ≈1 in 151K | listed | Babs | 51 |
| ZA South Africa | ≈510 est. | ≈1 in 110K | — | Babs | 14 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈430 est. | ≈1 in 154K | 11 | Babs | 115 |
| AT Austria | ≈190 est. | ≈1 in 46K | — | Babs | 12 |
| BE Belgium | ≈190 est. | ≈1 in 63K | 8 | Babs | 14 |
| CH Switzerland | ≈110 est. | ≈1 in 76K | — | Babs | 11 |
Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018); Statbel — Prénoms nouveau-nés (newborns). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses
(measured from records)Babs is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
2 Informal pet form of Barbara.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In Danish, boob, breast
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
English: informal pet form of BARBARA .
as a word
In Latvian, Bubulis, biedēklis bērniem
as a wordTēzaurs.lv (Dictionary and Thesaurus of Latvian, AiLab / LU MII)
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name
(measured from records)- Babs Atkinsb. 1917conservationist 1917–2004
- Alice Babsb. 1924SESwedish singer and actor (1924-2014)
- Babs van Welyb. 1924NLDutch illustrator and writer of children's books (1924–2007)
- Babs Gonsb. 1971NLDutch spoken word artist
- Babs Tarrb. 1987USAmerican comic book creator
- Babs AndersonBotswanan lawn bowler
- Babs OgundeyiNGNigerian bankier
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them
(machine-generated)A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence
(measured from records)28 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 18 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GB United Kingdom | Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register) | 2002 | 11 | #134,717 |
Reference works 2
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Babs mean, and where does it come from?
- A diminutive of the female given name Barbara. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- What are other forms of the name Babs?
- In the etymology graph, Bobbie, Bobbi and Barb are forms of the same name in other languages; it is recorded as a short form of Barbara.
- How do you pronounce Babs?
- It depends on the language: in English /bæbz/ (Wiktionary); in Dutch /bɑps/. Transcriptions are machine-generated except where a dictionary is named.
- In which country does Babs have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 4.2 thousand people named Babs in Nigeria, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled babs.
- Where is Babs most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Babs is densest in the Netherlands — about 1 in 23 thousand people — even though Nigeria holds more of our records for it.
- Is Babs a male or female name?
- Babs is a female name. National registers that list it by sex list it as female: Netherlands (Meertens NVB) and United States (Census Bureau, 2020).
- How common is the name Babs?
- In the Netherlands, the national register counted 751 people named Babs, about 1 in 23 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Babs?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/babsThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Babs”. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.