Aretta
Girls' nameMeaning not yet documented
Aretta has been given to 1,142 babies in the U.S. since 1900. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 1923, with 33 recorded.
Babies named Aretta, 1991
1 in 649,000
Aretta over time, 1880–2025
Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.
How common is Aretta?
Aretta had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1991, the last year it was published.
- Among all babies, 1991
- 1 in 649,000
- 6 of 3,892,928 births
- Among girls only
- 1 in 312,000
- <0.01% of girls
- Rank, 1991
- Unranked
- Fewer than 5 uses
- Coin-flip room size
- 449,730 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Aretta sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 1991 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 449,730 children born in 1991 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Aretta. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Arettas were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Aretta was born before 1931 — so the typical Aretta is around 94 today.
- Biggest decade
- 1920s
- 23.8% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 5.6%
- Mostly a past generation
- Recorded since 1950
- 267
- People you could plausibly meet
1920s — 23.8% of all recorded uses (272).
Is Aretta rising or falling?
Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.
- Rank vs 1 year ago
- —
- Not ranked then
- Rank vs 5 years ago
- New entry
- Not ranked then
- Rank vs 10 years ago
- —
- Not ranked then
- Births vs 10 years ago
- —
- Not published both years
- Share of its own peak
- 0%
- Peak was 1923 (33)
- Years since peak
- 102
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Volatile
- 36.4% average annual change
Spellings of Aretta
Aretta is not the most common spelling — Loretta is, with 42.7% against Aretta's 0.27%.
Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.
Where Aretta is used
Across 1910–2025, Aretta was most concentrated in West Virginia — about 1 in 16,667 girls, against 1 in 198,987 across all states with data. It was least common in Texas (1 in —).
Most concentrated
- 1West Virginia1 in 16,667
- 2Kentucky1 in —
- 3North Carolina1 in —
- 4Texas1 in —
Shading is the share of that state's recorded girls given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings. Aretta has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.
Aretta by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
Names similar to Aretta
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Aretta
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.