Feminine form of Robert, from Germanic 'hrod' (fame) and 'beraht' (bright).
Roberta is the feminine form of Robert, one of the great names of Germanic origin: from "Hrodebert," a compound of "hrod" (fame, glory) and "beraht" (bright, shining). Robert itself arrived in England with the Normans in 1066 and rapidly became one of the most common names in the medieval English-speaking world. Its feminine form, Roberta, emerged later, flowering most visibly in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when Latinate feminizations of masculine names were fashionable across Europe and America.
Roberta has been carried by women of remarkable achievement. Roberta Flack, the American singer and pianist, transformed popular music in the 1970s with the slow-burning intimacy of "Killing Me Softly" and "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" — two recordings that demonstrated how restraint and emotional depth could be more devastating than spectacle. Roberta Peters was a celebrated coloratura soprano of the Metropolitan Opera, and Roberta Bondar became Canada's first woman in space in 1992, adding astronaut to the name's distinguished résumé.
The name also has a light theatrical history: the 1933 Broadway musical "Roberta," later adapted into a film starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, kept it in public consciousness between the wars. Though Roberta peaked in American popularity in the 1940s and has grown less common since, it retains a kind of assured elegance — the feeling of a name that knows exactly who it is and has the history to back it up.