Ruby
- Pronunciation
- [Ru-by]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- Jewel
- Origin
- French
About the Name Ruby
Ruby is an English jewel name derived from the Latin rubeus meaning "red" — referring to the deep-red precious stone. The ruby gemstone (a variety of corundum colored red by traces of chromium) has been valued in nearly every Western and Asian culture for over four thousand years; its red color was associated with passion, vitality, and (in many traditions) protection from evil. In Christian symbolic tradition, the ruby was associated with the blood of Christ and with martyrdom.
Ruby as a personal name emerged during the late Victorian and Edwardian era's gem-and-flower naming wave, alongside Pearl, Opal, Iris, and Daisy. The name was particularly popular in the early 20th century, holding a US top-100 girls' rank from 1900 through 1933, before falling out of fashion through the mid-20th century. The contemporary surge is part of the broader 21st-century vintage-revival wave.
Notable bearers include American actress Ruby Dee (1922–2014, who alongside her husband Ossie Davis was a major figure in 20th-century African-American theater and cinema), British singer Ruby Murray (1950s pop singer), American social activist Ruby Bridges (the first African-American student to attend an all-white school in the South in 1960, age six), and contemporary actress Ruby Rose. Ruby climbed from outside the US top 200 in 2000 to the top 75 girls' rank by 2018 and the top 75 since. The appeal is its compact register — two short syllables, the in-built rich-red color imagery, and tonal versatility from antique to fresh. Common nicknames are scarce since the name is already short — Rubes, Roo, and the rare Rubikins each occasionally appear. International forms include Rubina (Italian/Latin elaboration), Rubia (Spanish), and the rare Robina.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Ruby
US Popularity History (1888–2025)
Annual US births named Ruby by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1924 with 8,406 girls named Ruby (girl rank #26 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #64 for girls (3,554 US births). That's 38 places below its 1924 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Where in the US Is Ruby Most Popular?
Average girl-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's girls-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Ruby the strongest states are Utah, Oregon, Idaho.
Strongest girls-name states
Weakest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New Jersey | #124 | 563 |
| 2 | Florida | #123 | 1,242 |
| 3 | West Virginia | #117 | 136 |
| 4 | Maryland | #112 | 409 |
| 5 | New Mexico | #109 | 138 |
| 6 | Mississippi | #107 | 226 |
| 7 | South Carolina | #106 | 373 |
| 8 | Texas | #105 | 2,486 |
| 9 | District of Columbia | #105 | 95 |
| 10 | Connecticut | #105 | 261 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Ruby in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rubie | Jewel | Female | French |
Famous People Named Ruby
1 notable figure from history and culture who share the name Ruby.
- Ruby Bridges — Civil Rights Leader (1954)
Looking for names like Ruby?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Ruby to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Ruby against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
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