Robin began as a medieval pet form of Robert, which means "bright fame", from the Germanic hrod, fame, and beraht, bright; for girls it is just as often read as the name of the "robin", the red-breasted songbird. Robin was a top 100 girls' name in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s. It ranked number 598 in 2000, slipped out of the top 1000 for several years and returned in 2018 with the new wave of bird names, ranking number 704 in 2025.