Is Bridget in the Bible? No, It Is the Irish Name of Saint Brigid

Bridget is not in the Bible. It is the English form of the Irish Brighid, from an old Celtic name meaning “the exalted one.” The name belonged to an Irish goddess before it belonged to Saint Brigid of Kildare, the fifth-century abbess through whom it became a Christian name.

Where does the name Bridget come from?

Bridget is an anglicized form of the Irish Brighid, Old Irish Brigit, which comes from the Celtic Brigantī, “the exalted one” or “the high one.” In Irish mythology Brigid was a goddess and a daughter of the Dagda. Cormac’s Glossary, written by Christian scribes in Ireland in the 9th century, calls her the goddess whom the poets worshipped and links her with healing and smithcraft through two sisters of the same name.

The saint changed how the Irish used the name. Because of her, the Irish long regarded it as sacred, and it did not come into general use there until the 17th century. It has no Hebrew origin and no Hebrew meaning.

The name has many forms. Irish and English have Brigid, Bríd and Bride, with the pet form Biddy. Brigitte is French and German, Brigida Italian, Brígida Spanish and Portuguese, and Brygida Polish. Birgitta, Birgit and Britt are Scandinavian, and the Welsh form is Ffraid.

In the United States Bridget was most popular in the 1970s, peaking at 112th among girls’ names in 1973, and it ranked 724th in 2025.

Is Bridget in the Bible?

No one in the Old or New Testament is named Bridget, Brigid or Brigitte. The name is Irish and pre-Christian, and the saint who first made it a Christian name lived more than three centuries after the New Testament was written.

Saint Brigid of Kildare

Brigid lived from about 451 to about 525. Around 480 she founded a monastery at Kildare for both men and women, and she was its first abbess, working with Conleth, its first bishop. The monastery became known for its scriptorium, and the Book of Kildare made there was praised by medieval writers for its illumination. Brigid is one of the three patron saints of Ireland, with Patrick and Columba.

Little about her life is certain. The early accounts are mostly anecdotes and miracle stories, some of them rooted in pre-Christian Irish folklore, and some scholars think the saint took on features of the goddess who shared her name, or even that she began as the goddess in Christian form. A fire was kept burning at Kildare in her honor for centuries, perhaps continuing a pre-Christian practice.

Her feast is 1 February, the date of Imbolc, the old Gaelic festival that marked the beginning of spring. On her day people traditionally weave Brigid’s crosses from rushes and visit holy wells. Since 2023 Ireland has kept a public holiday for Saint Brigid’s Day, on the first Monday of February or on 1 February when it falls on a Friday. It is the first Irish public holiday named after a woman.

Saint Bridget of Sweden

The other famous saint of the name is Birgitta of Sweden, who died in 1373. Her name is most likely a Scandinavian form of Bridget, through the Latin Brigitta, though it may instead come from her father’s name, Birger. She married Ulf Gudmarsson at 13 and had eight children, among them Saint Catherine of Vadstena. She founded the Order of the Most Holy Saviour, known as the Bridgettines, with a double monastery at Vadstena, and from 1350 she lived in Rome, where she pressed the popes to return from Avignon and recorded the visions that were later published as her Revelations. She died in Rome on 23 July, which is her feast day. She was canonized in 1391, and in 1999 Pope John Paul II named her one of the patron saints of Europe.

One of her visions changed the way the birth of Jesus was painted. Luke’s Gospel says only that Mary “gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn” (Luke 2:7). Near the end of her life Birgitta described seeing the child lying on clean swaddling cloths on the ground and giving off light, and the Virgin kneeling in prayer before him. In the 15th and 16th centuries the kneeling Virgin, praying to her child, became one of the most common ways of showing the Nativity, largely replacing the older image of Mary lying down after the birth.

Related reading

• Bible Study: Where Is the Christmas Story Found in Scripture?
• Is Your Name in the Bible? A Directory of 231 Names