Betty
Meaning
“God is my oath”
The story
Betty began in the late seventeenth century as an English pet form of Elizabeth, one of the dozens that grand old name has spun off, and for a stretch it outshone them all. From 1928 through 1934 Betty was the second most popular name for American girls, behind only Mary, and grown Bettys soon seemed to be everywhere: Betty Grable, Betty Ford, Betty Friedan. Its most durable ambassador was Betty White, whose television career spanned more than seven decades, from early live broadcasts to The Golden Girls, and who died a few weeks short of her hundredth birthday; in 2025 the US Postal Service put her on a Forever stamp. The name itself slipped off the American charts in the 1990s. It waits there, warm as ever, for the revival vintage nicknames keep earning.
The formal names behind Betty
Betty is an established short form of this name.
Elizabeth · Hebrew origin · "God is my oath," from the Hebrew Elisheva; the great durable classic of English girl names, worn by two reigning queens and rarely out of the US top 30 in over a century of records. Its nickname wealth is unmatched: Liz, Beth, Eliza, Betsy, Libby
Betty around the world
One shared root links 26 names across 6 languages.
Shared root: from Hebrew Elisheva "God is my oath"; medieval Iberia split off Isabel, and the nursery split off nearly everything else
The constellation
19 more branches of this family
Betty in song
betty
Taylor Swift (2020)
James apologizing to Betty in folklore's teenage love triangle, with the name borrowed, Swift has said, from one of Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds' daughters.
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Betty peaked in the 1930s.
See popularity in Brazil
Popularity in Brazil
487 people · the #13,655 first name in Brazil · about 1 in 500,000 · median age 58
Among people named Betty living in Brazil at the 2022 census, more were born in the 1960s than in any other decade.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
When you meet Betty
Most people given the name Betty in the United States were born between 1940 and 1959. The Betty you meet today is most often in her 70s or 80s.
Estimated from US Social Security birth registrations and typical lifespans; a rough guide, not a rule.
The Betty deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Betty truly comes from, how it traveled, and what a century of records reveals. If you have grown a tree on nametree, it also considers how Betty fits with your family’s names and surname.
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