You know the name. You’ve seen the black-and-white footage of the big guy trotting around the bases with those skinny legs and that barrel chest. He’s the Sultan of Swat. The Great Bambino. The Colossus of Clout. But if you walked up to him on the streets of Baltimore in 1900 and shouted, "Hey, Babe!" he wouldn't have even turned his head.
Honestly, he wouldn't have known who you were talking to.
Babe Ruth’s real name was George Herman Ruth Jr. He was named after his father, a man who spent most of his time grinding away in a saloon. There were no flashing lights or multi-million dollar contracts when George Jr. entered the world on February 6, 1895. He was just a rowdy kid from a rough neighborhood in Baltimore, Maryland.
The Boy Who Became George Herman Ruth Jr.
George wasn't born into a baseball dynasty. Far from it. His parents, Katherine Schamberger and George Herman Ruth Sr., were of German descent and worked themselves to the bone. Life was tough. Of the eight children born to the couple, only two survived infancy: George and his younger sister, Mamie.
The house where he was born, located at 216 Emory Street, belonged to his maternal grandfather. It’s a museum now, but back then, it was just a crowded space in a part of town known as Pigtown.
Young George was a handful. Basically, he was a delinquent. By the age of seven, he was already chewing tobacco, drinking beer, and skipping school to hang out at the docks. His father, running out of ways to keep the boy in line, finally had enough. He took George to the Baltimore courts and had him declared "incorrigible."
That’s a heavy word for a seven-year-old.
He was sent to St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys. It wasn't quite an orphanage, but it wasn't a summer camp either. It was a reform school run by Xaverian Brothers. For the next twelve years, George lived behind those walls, learning how to make shirts and build furniture.
Why We Don't Call Him George Anymore
So, how does a kid named George Herman Ruth Jr. become "The Babe"? It didn't happen in a playground. It happened because of a legal loophole and a bit of clubhouse teasing.
By 1914, George was a nineteen-year-old powerhouse. He could pitch like a demon and hit the ball further than anyone the monks had ever seen. Word got out to Jack Dunn, the owner and manager of the Baltimore Orioles (then a minor league team). Dunn watched George play for less than an hour before he knew he had to have him.
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But there was a catch.
Under the laws of the time, George was still a minor in the eyes of the state because he was under the care of the school. To sign him to a professional contract, Dunn had to legally adopt him or become his legal guardian. When George showed up to spring training in Fayetteville, North Carolina, he was literally "Jack’s new babe."
The veteran players on the team saw this big, nineteen-year-old kid following Dunn around everywhere and started mocking him. "Look at Dunnie's new babe," they'd say.
The name stuck. It was supposed to be a jab, but it became the most famous moniker in sports history.
Interestingly, his friends didn't always call him Babe. Some called him "Jidge," which was a sort of shorthand or nickname derived from "George." In the clubhouse, he was often "The Big Baboon." But to the world, he was Babe.
The Birthday Mystery
Here's something kinda weird: Babe Ruth didn't even know his own real birthday for a long time.
For years, he believed he was born on February 7, 1894. He celebrated it then. He told people that was the date. It wasn't until he applied for a passport to go on a barnstorming tour later in life that he actually looked at his birth certificate.
He found out he was nearly a full year younger than he thought. He was actually born on February 6, 1895. Imagine being the most famous man in America and realizing you've been celebrating your birthday on the wrong day for decades.
The Names That Followed
Once George Herman Ruth Jr. became "Babe," the press went wild. As he moved from the Boston Red Sox to the New York Yankees, the nicknames grew as large as his home run totals.
- The Bambino: A play on "Babe," Italian-style, popular in the melting pot of New York.
- The Sultan of Swat: A nod to his incredible power.
- The Caliph of Clout: Another alliterative gem from the era of flowery sports writing.
But through it all, on legal documents and in his private life, he was George. When he married his first wife, Helen Woodford, or his second wife, Claire Hodgson, he signed the papers as George Herman Ruth.
Why the "Real" Name Still Matters
Knowing him as George Herman Ruth Jr. changes the narrative. It takes him away from being a mythical god of the diamond and puts him back in the dusty streets of Baltimore. He wasn't a "Babe" when he was seven. He was a kid who was neglected, labeled "incorrigible," and left to find a father figure in a monk named Brother Matthias.
Brother Matthias was the one who really taught him the game. He’d stand in the yard and hit fungoes for hours. George watched how Matthias shifted his weight, how he swung through the ball. He mimicked that style.
If Jack Dunn hadn't needed to sign those guardianship papers, we might be talking about "George Ruth" in the same breath as Ty Cobb or Cy Young. But "Babe" gave him a persona. It made him approachable. It made him a legend.
Modern Confusion: The 2025/2026 Identity Fraud
It's worth noting that the name George Herman Ruth still pops up in weird places today. Just recently, in late 2025, news broke about a man in Tennessee—actually named George Herman Ruth—who was indicted for a massive fraud scheme. He wasn't related to the ballplayer, but he allegedly used the name's historical weight to run scams involving class-action settlements. It just goes to show that the name carries a gravity that hasn't faded even a century later.
Quick Facts on the Name
- Birth Name: George Herman Ruth Jr.
- Father: George Herman Ruth Sr.
- Mother: Katherine Schamberger.
- Sister: Mary Margaret "Mamie" Ruth.
- Nickname Origin: 1914 spring training; referred to as Jack Dunn's "babe."
- Incorrect Birthday: He thought it was Feb 7, 1894; it was actually Feb 6, 1895.
If you want to dive deeper into the life of the man behind the pinstripes, your next move should be to look into the St. Mary's Industrial School archives. Understanding the "incorrigible" years is the only way to understand how George Herman Ruth Jr. became the icon who saved baseball. Check out the Babe Ruth Birthplace Museum’s digital records to see the actual documents from his time in the reformatory. It’s a reality check on the man we only know as a myth.