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Girl · Germanic, through French
Bernadette
Say it: bur-nuh-DET
Meaning
French feminine diminutive of Bernard, from Germanic bern 'bear' and hart 'hard, brave'.
Certainscholars agree on this meaning.
Spread through Catholic Europe and Ireland after the apparitions at Lourdes.
Its wave through time
Fading since the 1940s
In the United States
- 54,022 babies given this name since 1880
- At its height in 1946, about 1 in 1,200 girls
- 150 babies in 2020
Through the ages
Used by
The family of the name
| German | Bernadette |
|---|---|
| Italian | Bernadetta |
| Spanish | Bernardita |
Famous bearers
- Saint Bernadette Soubirous of Lourdes
Names worth a look
Where this comes from
- Calendars of saints and name days
- National census records of the 19th and 20th centuries
- Lives of the saints and early Christian martyrologies
- National birth statistics of European countries source
- United States Social Security birth records, 1880 to today source
Meanings and histories are compiled from the study of names and their languages and checked by a second review.
Meanings and histories are drawn from the study of names and their languages, each with a confidence rating; popularity figures come from official birth records. Name histories are a living field: if you know of a correction, we would be glad to hear it.