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Grete

Girls' name

Short form of Margrete

Grete has been given to 61 babies in the U.S. since 1927. 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 1981, with 7 recorded.

Babies named Grete, 2002

1 in 747,000

Grete over time, 1880–2025

Girls
0246818801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Grete: meaning, origin, and history

Short form of Margrete

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Grete means

Grete is a short form of Margrete.

Origin, language, and formation

Grete is used in Danish, Estonian, German and Norwegian.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Margrete, Margaret, Margarete and Grethe.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 61 girls were recorded with the name Grete between 1927 and 2002. Its highest annual count was 7 in 1981; its best national rank was #4,066 in 1931.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning, origin, and language notes draw on the references below.

American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling. Counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted.

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

How common is Grete?

Grete had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2002, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2002
1 in 747,000
5 of 3,737,275 births
Among girls only
1 in 359,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2002
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
518,097 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Grete sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Olivia (13,544)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 2002 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 518,097 children born in 2002 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Grete. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Gretes were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Grete was born before 1981 — so the typical Grete is around 44 today.

Median birth year
1981
About 44 years old
Biggest decade
1980s
31.1% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
63.9%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
45
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1980s — 31.1% of all recorded uses (19).

Is Grete 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 1981 (7)
Years since peak
44
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Steady
10.0% average annual change
Best rank ever
#4,066
1931

Spellings of Grete

Grete is not the most common spelling — Grace is, with 54.4% against Grete's <0.01%.

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.

Grete around the world

Where Grete ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.

  • France
    1909–1910
    #962
    in 1910
  • Norway
    1880–2022
    #467
    in 2022

Popularity data from Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques and Statistics Norway. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. SSB data under CC BY 4.0.

Grete by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#4,066
1931
Peak year
1981
7 that year
First recorded
1927
Last recorded
2002
All-time count
61
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Grete

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

GreysGreicyGreisyGreysiGreggGreeicyGrendaGresiaGrethaGreidyGretnaJulieteGreenlyGregGreyaGreetaGreysenGreydiGreylynnGrettellGreylynGreeleyGreidisLizete

Sibling names for Grete

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Grete

Top names of 1981, Grete's peak yearThe 1980s in fullOther names that peaked in 1931Girls' names starting with G