Holiday Calendar

National Betty Day

Next celebratedTuesday, December 22, 2026

Betty is only a pet form of Elizabeth, and for 29 straight years American parents registered more of the nickname than the name, three and a half to one in 1930. December 22 is the day the pet form kept for itself.

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Last updated September 6, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?
YEARLY DATEDecember 22
OBSERVED INUnited States
CATEGORYNames
ORIGIN

Community Origin

FOUNDING ENTITY
Not documented
FIRST OBSERVED
Not documented
HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

One origin story circulates, and it cites nothing.

National Betty Day circulates through online holiday listings each December 22, and the single origin account in circulation rests on pages that cite no source for it. No founder, proclamation or establishment record has been located, and no federal document names the day.

+ Know the story? Submit a founder Help us complete this holiday
INTRO

For 29 years the nickname outnumbered the name it came from

For 29 consecutive years, more American girls were registered as Betty than as Elizabeth. Betty is a pet form of Elizabeth, so across 1921-1949 the nickname outran the name it came from, without a single break. National Betty Day is the observance attached to the nickname, not to the name.

The gap was widest in 1930. That year the national files count 38,240 Bettys against 10,995 Elizabeths, roughly three and a half to one. Then the order flipped, and it has never flipped back.

Behind the Name lists 31 nicknames for Elizabeth that turn up in the American files, and only three ever outnumbered it in any year. Betty's run is the longest of the three, and it holds even when the net is widened to Elizabeth's other descendants. Isabella, filed there rather than among the nicknames, has led in every year across 2004-2025, and that run is still seven years short.

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ORIGINS

Betty Day history

INTRODUCTION

In 1921 a flour milling company had a problem it had not planned for. A Gold Medal Flour puzzle promotion brought in thousands of replies, and with them a flood of questions about baking. Washburn Crosby needed a name to sign the answers with.

The surname came from William G. Crocker, a recently retired company director. The first name, by the company's own account, was chosen simply because it sounded friendly. It was also, that year, the eighth most popular girls' name in the country.

CHAPTER 01

The climb nobody engineered

The name was already moving before the company reached for it. Betty stood sixty-ninth among American girls in 1910, and it kept climbing for two more decades. Betty Crocker did not start that rise; the invented correspondent arrived in the middle of one.

The peak came in 1930. That year Betty took 3.40 percent of all listed American girl births, second only to Mary. It held second place for seven consecutive years, 1928-1934.

CHAPTER 02

A decline that was completely normal

Betty Boop was drawn into existence in 1930 as well, the same year the count peaked. Births fell in each of the next seven years, and the name never recovered. The cartoon did not make Betty popular; it caught the name on its way down.

The fall that followed sounds dramatic and was not. Of the twenty-six girls' names that reached the American top ten in the years 1920-1949, thirteen now sit outside the top thousand. Six of them fell further than Betty by share.

CHAPTER 03

A day with nothing behind it

National Betty Day itself has no record behind it. There is no proclamation, no registration, no named author, and no federal document that mentions it. Even the date has no documented reason.

So the day rests entirely on the name. Everything verifiable about National Betty Day turns out to be something verifiable about Betty.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why National Betty Day Matters

COUNTING

Every Betty figure is a floor, never a census.

The Social Security files record the string written on a birth record, so a girl registered Elizabeth and called Betty all her life never appears in the Betty column. Every Betty count is therefore a floor on the number of women called Betty, and the gap cannot be measured from these files at all.

CALENDAR

An American date, not a European feast

Across the national name-day calendars Behind the Name indexes, the Elizabeth line falls on November 19 in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Norway. December 22 carries no Elizabeth name in any of them, which makes this an American date rather than an inherited one.

ENDURANCE

The original never moved

Across all 146 years of American birth records, Elizabeth has never once dropped out of the top 26, and it has sat outside the top 25 in only two of them. Betty rose and receded inside a single lifetime while the name it shortened barely moved, and through the 2025 file Elizabeth outnumbers it by about thirty-two to one.

BY THE NUMBERS

National Betty Day by the Numbers

1,001,238
US girls registered as Betty since 1880
3,619
US boys registered as Betty since 1880
1950
Year Elizabeth retook the lead
1996
Betty's last year in the top 1000

GOOD TO KNOW

Four Bettys and the names on their birth records

Betty Ford, born Elizabeth Anne Bloomer

The Ford Presidential Library records the 1978 family intervention that sent her to Long Beach Naval Hospital and the treatment center she co-founded four years later.

Betty Grable, born Ruth Elizabeth Grable

She held the number one box-office spot in 1943, and her legs were insured for one million dollars.

Betty Friedan, born Bettye Naomi Goldstein

She dropped the e from her name at Berkeley, then wrote The Feminine Mystique and helped found the National Organization for Women.

Betty White, born Betty Marion White

The only one of the four registered as Betty, she took eight Emmy Awards across a career the Television Academy puts at more than 75 years.

GET INVOLVED

How to Observe National Betty Day

ASK

Ask a Betty what her birth certificate says

It may say Bettye, or Bettie, or Elizabeth, spellings the national files count as separate names entirely. Whichever it is, the answer is a piece of family history no public record holds.

READ

Read Betty Friedan's 1963 book

The Feminine Mystique named what she called the problem that has no name. The National Women's History Museum sets out how the book and the movement around it fit together.

WATCH

Watch something from Betty White's Emmy years

Her five Primetime wins run from the mid-1970s to the guest-actress award she took for hosting Saturday Night Live at 88. The Television Academy lists every nomination.

BAKE

Bake from the archive a flour company started

The Betty Crocker kitchens have been answering baking questions since 1921. The signature still on the box is based on one a woman employee submitted and the company judged most distinctive.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know National Betty Day?

1 / 9

Betty held second place among American girls' names from 1928 to 1934. Where did it rank across all American babies in 1930?

Answer

No. It is an unofficial observance with no legal standing found, and no federal document names it, so December 22 is a normal working day.

COLOPHON

Sources

How we know what’s on this page. References, not endorsements.

11sources
5primary records
3independently dated
Primary records
Social Security Administration2025
Popular Baby Names: National Data on the Relative Frequency of Given Names
Yearly counts for every US given name from 1880 onward, the file behind every figure here.
View source
Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum
Betty Ford Biography
The archive's own life of Elizabeth Anne Bloomer Ford, her 1978 intervention and the center.
View source
Television Academy
Betty White: Emmy Awards and Nominations
Her full Emmy record, including the 2010 guest-actress win for hosting Saturday Night Live.
View source
Betty Crocker2023
About Us
The company's own account of how the name was picked in 1921 to sign replies to bakers.
View source
Federal Register
Federal Register document search
The daily journal of the US government, searchable for any observance named in federal documents.
View source
Additional coverage
Behind the Name
Meaning, origin and history of the name Elizabeth
The Hebrew and Greek roots of Elizabeth, plus the reference list of its 31 English diminutives.
View source
Behind the Name
Meaning, origin and history of the name Betty
Dates Betty as a diminutive of Elizabeth from the end of the 17th century.
View source
Behind the Name
Name Days for the name Elisabeth
The November 19 name day kept for Elisabeth in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Norway.
View source
National Women's History Museum2017
Betty Friedan
Biography covering her birth name Bettye, The Feminine Mystique, and the founding of NOW.
View source
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Betty Grable
Life of Ruth Elizabeth Grable, her decade in the box-office top ten and the insured legs.
View source
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Betty White
Records her full name, Betty Marion White, and her career dates.
View source
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