Deborah

Where the name comes from

• Hebrew
  bee
  דְּבוֹרָה (Devorah), the Hebrew word for “bee”
  The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew Lexicon (1906) lists the name as “proper name, feminine (bee)” and the common noun as “noun feminine bee.” Charlotte Yonge (1884) and the Dictionary of Medieval Names from European Sources agree: Hebrew, ‘bee’.

Deborah across traditions

• Jewish (Hebrew Bible). Deborah (Devorah) was a prophetess and judge of Israel who sat in Ephraim and helped defeat the Canaanite general Sisera (Judges 4–5). Her victory song is one of the oldest surviving pieces of Hebrew literature. An earlier Deborah was the nurse of Rebekah (Genesis 35:8).
• Christian (European). English Bible readers met the name in the Wycliffite Bible of 1395 (spelled Delbora). In the 16th century it appears as a given name in Dutch, French and Walloon registers (Debora, Débora).
• English. Yonge’s 1884 history lists Deborah and the short form Deb, both glossed “bee.”
• United States (SSA). 1,206,338 combined births in the SSA decade tables, 1950s–2010s (Deborah 676,614 + Debra 529,724). Peak decade: the 1950s (771,885 births), when Deborah ranked #5 and Debra #7 among girls. Top 100 in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s; out of the top 200 after the 1980s.

Who carried it

• Deborah, prophetess and judge of Israel (About 3,100–3,200 years ago): Led Israel against Sisera; the Song of Deborah (Judges 5) is among the oldest Hebrew literature
• Deborah, nurse of Rebekah (Patriarchal narratives (Genesis 35:8)): The first Deborah named in the Bible

Forms in other languages

Debra, Devorah, Dvora, Dvorah, Debora, Débora, Deb, Debbie

Deborah in letter-number systems

Hebrew, Greek and other traditions gave every letter a number, and read meaning into the totals. These are the counts, computed; the readings are inside the Innerverse.