Rebekah
Meaning
variant of Rebecca, traditionally 'to bind' or 'captivating'
The story
Rebekah is the King James spelling of Rebecca, the Genesis matriarch met at the well whose Hebrew name is traditionally read as to bind or captivating, and the h is the whole point: it is the Bible's own orthography, kept letter for letter. The spelling has quiet, continuous American use from the 1890s, then climbs with the broader biblical revival to a long plateau across the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s, easing only slightly since. Choosing Rebekah over Rebecca is a deliberate act of sourcing, the difference between citing the verse and paraphrasing it, and the record shows exactly the community that keeps making that choice: steady, scripture-anchored, patient with fashion, and entirely uninterested in its schedule. It is a name that stays put once it enters a family line, handed down the way the text itself is, carefully and on purpose.
Rebekah around the world
One shared root links 6 names across 3 languages.
Shared root: from Hebrew Rivqah, traditionally glossed "to bind, join", though the meaning is uncertain
The constellation
More branches
Sources list Rebekah among the forms of Rebecca (Biblical · English).
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Rebekah peaked in the 1990s and the 2010s in nearly equal measure.
See popularity in Brazil
Popularity in Brazil
460 people · the #14,175 first name in Brazil · about 1 in 500,000 · median age 9
Among people named Rebekah living in Brazil at the 2022 census, more were born in the 2010s than in any other decade.
The census also counted 94 born between 2020 and August 2022, too recent a span to chart.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
When you meet Rebekah
Most people given the name Rebekah in the United States were born between 1980 and 2009. The Rebekah you meet today is most often in her 20s or 30s.
Estimated from US Social Security birth registrations and typical lifespans; a rough guide, not a rule.
The Rebekah deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Rebekah 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 Rebekah fits with your family’s names and surname.
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