Bernadette is the French feminine form of Bernard and means "brave as a bear" or "strong bear", from the Germanic words bern, bear, and hard, brave. Saint Bernadette Soubirous, the girl who reported visions of the Virgin Mary at Lourdes in 1858, made the name a Catholic favorite. In the United States Bernadette has been quietly climbing from number 1603 in 2000 to number 1034 in 2025, its best rank in decades.