Bob
Meaning
bright fame (pet form of Robert); famously borne by Bob Dylan and Bob Marley
The story
Bob may be the friendliest syllable in American English: a pet form of Robert, which reaches back to a Germanic name meaning bright fame. For a stretch of the early twentieth century parents happily put plain Bob on birth certificates, and the name peaked around the 1930s before the custom faded; Roberts kept becoming Bobs, but the paperwork went back to the formal name. The name's giants need no introduction. Bob Dylan reshaped what a popular song could say and won the Nobel Prize in Literature for it; Bob Marley carried reggae from Kingston to every corner of the planet. Both, fittingly, were Roberts on paper, which rather proves the point. On the chart, Bob is nearly gone; in the culture, he is everywhere, the name of the neighbor, the uncle, and at least two of the twentieth century's most important musicians.
The formal names behind Bob
Bob is an established short form of this name.
Robert · Germanic origin · bright fame
Bob around the world
One shared root links 8 names across 3 languages.
Shared root: from Germanic Hrodebert, hrod "fame" + beraht "bright"
The constellation
More branches
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Bob peaked in the 1930s.
See popularity in Brazil
Popularity in Brazil
211 people · the #24,462 first name in Brazil · about 1 in 1,000,000 · median age 36
Among people named Bob living in Brazil at the 2022 census, more were born in the 1980s than in any other decade.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
When you meet Bob
Most people given the name Bob in the United States were born between 1940 and 1969. The Bob you meet today is most often in his 60s or 70s.
Estimated from US Social Security birth registrations and typical lifespans; a rough guide, not a rule.
The Bob deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Bob 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 Bob fits with your family’s names and surname.
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