Beth

given name · Latin script

Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Beth is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. Recorded meaning: 2 Short form of Elizabeth, not used before the 19th century, when it became popular in America and elsewhere after publication of Louisa M.

rarermore common
  • IEIreland≈1 in 1.3K(inferred from the name graph)
  • CNChina≈1 in 1.4K
  • GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 1.5K

carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

China (inferred from the name graph)

≈990,000 people, est.

#531 (measured from records)

of 15M given names

3 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
593 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 1.3K (inferred from the name graph)

Ireland, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

BethLatin(measured from records)
БетCyrillic(measured from records)
베트Hangul(measured from records)

One other spelling is counted as the same name:

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

2 Short form of Elizabeth, not used before the 19th century, when it became popular in America and elsewhere after publication of Louisa M. Alcott’s novel Little Women (1868), in which Beth March is one of the four sisters who are the central characters. 4 25

Sources 1

  • A concise dictionary of first names

Attested across 14 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Beth 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.

Where Beth is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
CN China—≈990,000 est.≈1 in 1.4K—Beth35
US United States#222136,2691 in 2.4K136KBeth593
GB United Kingdom#246≈45,000 est.≈1 in 1.5K14Beth294
EG Egypt—≈25,000 est.≈1 in 4.2K—Beth24
CA Canada#258≈22,000 est.≈1 in 1.7K1Beth246
IE Ireland#150≈4,100 est.≈1 in 1.3K—Beth79
SK Slovakia#485≈3,900 est.≈1 in 1.4K—Beth11
NZ New Zealand#224≈3,000 est.≈1 in 1.6K10Beth106

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: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; NISRA — Baby names Northern Ireland full list (1997–present); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present). 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Beth is also recorded as 4 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • a separate name2 spellings in the group

    Also written Bēth

  • Spanish given name20 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, France, Brazil, Argentina

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese, French

    Also written Běth, Bëth, Bêth, Bèth, Bĕţh

  • Greek given name3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Greece, United States, United Kingdom

    Also written Mpet, Μπετ

  • Turkish given name7 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Türkiye, United Kingdom, Canada

    Languages: Turkish, Azerbaijani, Uzbek

    Also written Bëth

59 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Beth is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In English, The second letter of the Aramaic alphabet, 𐡁

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In German, Kurzform-Familienname, meist zu Elisabeth; 453 Träger.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 6: Familiennamen aus Rufnamen

  • In German, weibl. Vom., Kurzform von

    as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen

  • English: short form of ELIZABETH , not used before the 19th century, when it became popular in America and elsewhere after publication of Louisa M. Alcott's novel Little Women (1868), in which Beth March is one of the four sisters who are the central characters. Pet form: Welsh: Bethan (now also popular elsewhere in the English-speaking world) .

    as a word

  • In sga, third-person singular past subjunctive of at·tá

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

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)

1940196019802000Mary Beth Hurt, b. 1946Beth Grant, b. 1949Beth Broderick, b. 1959Marlee Matlin, b. 1965Amy Ryan, b. 1968Pink, b. 1979Sara Bareilles, b. 1979Beth Ditto, b. 1981Beth Behrs, b. 1985Beth Mead, b. 1995
  • Mary Beth Hurtb. 1946USAmerican stage and film actress
  • Beth Grantb. 1949USAmerican actress
  • Beth Broderickb. 1959USAmerican actress
  • Marlee Matlinb. 1965USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress (born 1965)
  • Amy Ryanb. 1968USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress (born 1968)
  • Pinkb. 1979USnot in their usual nameAmerican singer, songwriter, and actress (born 1979)
  • Sara Bareillesb. 1979USnot in their usual nameAmerican recording artist; pop rock singer-songwriter and pianist
  • Beth Dittob. 1981USAmerican singer
  • Beth Behrsb. 1985USAmerican actress
  • Beth Meadb. 1995GBEnglish footballer

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).

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 67 sources across 32 countries.

Official registers attesting Beth
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000915#25,398
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020869#29,059
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010846#28,263

Reference works 6

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 are other forms of the name Beth?
In the etymology graph, Lisa, Isabel and Betty are forms of the same name in other languages; Lillia is a recorded short or pet form; it is recorded as a short form of Elizabeth and Elsabeth.
What does the name Beth mean, and where does it come from?
2 Short form of Elizabeth, not used before the 19th century, when it became popular in America and elsewhere after publication of Louisa M. Recorded by A concise dictionary of first names.
Is Beth a male or female name?
Beth is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
How common is the name Beth?
In the United States, the national register counted 136,269 people named Beth in 2020, about 1 in 2.4 thousand residents.
How common is Beth compared with other names?
In Ireland, Beth is the 150th most common given name of 14,976 given names recorded there.
In which country does Beth have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 990 thousand people named Beth in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled beth.

What do you want to know about Beth?

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Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/beth

The same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use; a free API key gives 1,000 requests a day, and bulk access is licensed separately.

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, “Beth” — the 150th most common given name in Ireland. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Beth parses inside a full name →