Holiday Calendar

National Deborah Day

Next celebratedFriday, December 18, 2026

The Hebrew phrase attached to Deborah reads as wife of Lappidoth or as woman of torches, and translators have never settled which. December 18 hands the name on to the people carrying it now.

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Last updated September 6, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?
YEARLY DATEDecember 18
OBSERVED INInternationally
CATEGORYNames
ORIGIN

Community Origin

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

Observed for years without an author on record.

No founder, founding year, or establishing act for National Deborah Day appears in any primary record, and a full-text search of the Federal Register returns nothing under the name. What is documented is the practice: the December 18 date has been marked in public, including by a school in New Riegel, Ohio in 2024.

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INTRO

Told twice in adjacent chapters that do not agree

The book of Judges tells the same killing twice, one chapter apart, and the two accounts do not match. In the prose version, Jael drives a tent peg through the skull of the Canaanite commander Sisera while he sleeps. In the poem that follows, she does it while he is awake and standing.

Both accounts belong to Deborah, the figure the text puts at the head of that revolt. National Deborah Day borrows her name for the people who carry it now, and in the United States the name crested in the 1950s. Social Security records count 430,537 American girls registered as Deborah across that decade, fifth among all girls' names.

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ORIGINS

Deborah Day history

INTRODUCTION

Judges opens her chapter with Deborah sitting under a palm tree in the hill country of Ephraim, hearing disputes brought to her by Israelites. Twelve judges get their stories told in the book. She is the only woman among them, and the only one the text also calls a prophet.

Even her own description resists translation. The Hebrew phrase attached to her, eshet lappidot, can be read as woman of the town Lappidoth, wife of a man named Lappidoth, or woman of torches, which some render as fiery woman.

CHAPTER 01

A poem of disputed age

The victory is told again in the following chapter as a 31-verse poem, the Song of Deborah. Many scholars place its composition centuries before the rest of the book and treat it as among the oldest passages in the Hebrew Bible. Serge Frolov, author of Judges for Eerdmans and editor of the journal Hebrew Studies, reads the same evidence the other way.

His argument is lexical. The poem's words for "that" and for "spear" both cluster in books written after the Babylonian exile. It also hands out aristocratic titles that archaeology places centuries after the date the poem is supposed to describe.

CHAPTER 02

From Hebrew scripture into English use

Deborah was long a common Jewish name before English Christians began using it, and that shift came only after the Protestant Reformation. It caught on among the Puritans.

American record-keeping picks the name up at the very start. Deborah appears in the United States rankings in 1880, the first year the data covers. Its high point came in 1955, when it ranked second among American girls' names.

CHAPTER 03

A December date with no paperwork

The observance is a different matter from the name. National Deborah Day sits on holiday calendars and gets marked in public, and in 2024 the sophomore class at New Riegel Schools in Ohio built a day of trivia, crosswords and bingo around it. What is missing is the beginning.

No founder, no founding year and no establishing document turn up for it, and a full-text search of the Federal Register returns nothing under the name.

TIMELINE

Timeline

Deborah Sampson enlists as a man

She joined the Fourth Massachusetts Regiment under the name Robert Shurtleff and served until an illness in Philadelphia exposed her.

A first American lecture tour

Sampson began a year-long tour speaking about her service, the first woman in America to do so, sometimes in full military regalia.

The US name series begins

The first year of American given-name records already lists Deborah, near the middle of the top thousand.

Deborah peaks at second

The name reached its highest American rank, second among girls, at the crest of a climb that began in the 1940s.

Deborah Kerr receives an honorary Oscar

After six Academy Award nominations for best actress and no win, Kerr was given an honorary lifetime achievement award.

An Ohio school marks the day

New Riegel Schools posted that its sophomore class had taken up December 18, a dated public record of the day being observed.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why We Love National Deborah Day

RECEPTION

Called a prophet, then minimized as a judge.

Later rabbis acknowledged Deborah as a prophet and then blunted her, speculating about her husband, reading the opening of her song as hubris, and minimizing her role as judge. A day carrying her name keeps that argument about women in authority attached to it.

EVIDENCE

A literary figure, not a verified biography

The Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia is blunt that nothing outside the text corroborates the events of Judges, and that treating Deborah as a historical person is a mistake. What the day honors is a character with a long afterlife, and the living people who share her name.

POETRY

The song hands the victory to the weather

In the poem the Canaanite chariots are beaten by water rather than by generalship, as the stars fight from heaven and the torrent Kishon sweeps the army away. The flood strands the chariots, and the poem gives Israel's infantry the win.

AT A GLANCE

The name Deborah at a glance

Meaning
Bee, from the Hebrew Devora
Diminutives
Deb, Debbi, Debby and Debi
Other forms
Devorah and Dvorah in Hebrew, Debora in Dutch and Italian, Débora in Spanish
US rank, 2025
862nd among American girls
Other name day
September 21 in the Austrian calendar

GOOD TO KNOW

Surprising facts about National Deborah Day

Two women in the Hebrew Bible carry the name

The second is named only as she dies. Genesis 35:8 records that Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, was buried under the oak below Bethel, and the place was called Allon-bacuth, glossed as the oak of the weeping.

The Hebrew Bible names only five female prophets

Deborah is one of them, alongside Miriam, Huldah, Noadiah, and the unnamed wife of Isaiah, according to the Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia.

The Song of Deborah credits two singers

Its opening line reads: On that day Deborah and Barak son of Abinoam sang. The poem is named for her, but the text does not hand it to her alone.

The name has never left the US top 1000

American given-name records carry a rank for Deborah in 146 consecutive years, through the whole climb and the whole decline, without a single year missing.

Congress said the Revolution offered no equal

Ruling in 1837 on a petition from Deborah Sampson's widower, a congressional committee concluded that the history of the Revolution furnished no other similar example of female heroism, fidelity and courage.

Its translators say much of it is not understood

The JPS text of the Song of Deborah carries a standing note reading: in many parts of this poem the meaning is uncertain.

GET INVOLVED

How to Celebrate National Deborah Day

HOST

Host a trivia round of your own

Student-written trivia, crosswords and bingo have already carried the day at one school, and the format scales down to a homeroom or a dinner table. Draw the questions from the record rather than a template.

ASK

Ask the Deborahs you know who chose it

Every given name arrives through somebody's decision, and those decisions go unrecorded fast. Ask, and write the answer down.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know National Deborah Day?

1 / 6

What does the name Deborah mean in Hebrew?

Answer

No. It is an unofficial observance with no legal standing found, so it is a normal working day for schools, banks and offices.

COLOPHON

Sources

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

14sources
6primary records
5independently dated
Primary records
Social Security Administration
Top names of the 1950s
The 200 most common American given names of the decade, with counts.
View source
Sefaria
Judges 5, Hebrew with the JPS translation
The Song of Deborah in full, with the translators' notes on its difficulty.
View source
Sefaria
Genesis 35:8, Hebrew with the JPS translation
The verse naming Rebekah's nurse Deborah and the oak of the weeping.
View source
New Riegel Schools2024-12
December 18 is National Deborah Day
A school's own post on how its sophomores marked the day.
View source
Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Deborah Sampson: American Revolutionary War Hero
The state's account of Sampson's enlistment, wounds, lecture tour and pension.
View source
Federal Register
Document search API, National Deborah Day
A full-text search of federal documents returning no match for the name.
View source
Additional coverage
Jewish Women's Archive2021-06
Deborah: Bible, Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women
A scholarly entry on Deborah's titles, the poem, and her rabbinic afterlife.
View source
Bible Odyssey2014-09
How Old Is the Song of Deborah?
Serge Frolov lays out the linguistic case for a much later date.
View source
Bible Odyssey2014-09
Deborah
Jennifer Koosed on the judges, and on how the two accounts differ.
View source
Behind the Name
Popularity for the name Deborah, United States
A rank and share for Deborah in every American year from 1880 on.
View source
Behind the Name2024-10
Meaning, origin and history of the name Deborah
The Hebrew etymology, the English adoption after the Reformation, and name days.
View source
Schulferien.org
Namenstag Debora
The German-language name-day entry placing Debora on September 21.
View source
Texas State Historical Association
Reynolds, Mary Frances [Debbie], Handbook of Texas Online
Debbie Reynolds was born Mary Frances and renamed at MGM's suggestion.
View source
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Deborah Kerr
Kerr's career, her six best-actress nominations, and her honorary Oscar.
View source
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