Gretchan
Girls' nameMeaning not yet documented
Gretchan has been given to 34 babies in the U.S. since 1971. 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 1972, with 7 recorded.
Babies named Gretchan, 1980
1 in 689,000
Gretchan 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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.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 Gretchan?
Gretchan had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1980, the last year it was published.
- Among all babies, 1980
- 1 in 689,000
- 5 of 3,444,198 births
- Among girls only
- 1 in 332,000
- <0.01% of girls
- Rank, 1980
- Unranked
- Fewer than 5 uses
- Coin-flip room size
- 477,468 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Gretchan sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 1980 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 477,468 children born in 1980 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Gretchan. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Gretchans were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Gretchan was born before 1973 — so the typical Gretchan is around 52 today.
- Biggest decade
- 1970s
- 85.3% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 100.0%
- A modern name
- Recorded since 1950
- 34
- People you could plausibly meet
1970s — 85.3% of all recorded uses (29).
Is Gretchan 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 1972 (7)
- Years since peak
- 53
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Shifting
- 15.9% average annual change
Spellings of Gretchan
Gretchan is not the most common spelling — Gretchen is, with 99.9% against Gretchan's 0.06%.
- Gretchen99.9%53,799
- Gretchan0.06%34
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.
Gretchan by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
Names similar to Gretchan
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Gretchan
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.