Grethel
#15,711 in 2025Girls' nameMeaning not yet documented
Grethel has been given to 630 babies in the U.S. since 1904. In 2025 it ranked #15,711 of 17,293 girls’ names in use. Its peak year was 1921, with 20 recorded.
Babies named Grethel, 2025
1 in 663,000
Grethel 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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.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 Grethel?
Everything below is computed from the 2025 data — the most recent year available.
- Among all babies, 2025
- 1 in 663,000
- 5 of 3,315,165 births
- Among girls only
- 1 in 321,000
- <0.01% of girls
- Rank, 2025
- #15,711
- of 17,293 girls’ names in use
- Coin-flip room size
- 459,581 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Grethel sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 2025 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 459,581 children born in 2025 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Grethel. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Grethels were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Grethel was born before 1939 — so the typical Grethel is around 86 today.
- Biggest decade
- 1910s
- 20.3% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 34.8%
- Spread across generations
- Recorded since 1950
- 274
- People you could plausibly meet
1910s — 20.3% of all recorded uses (128).
Is Grethel 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
- −5,909
- Places dropped
- Rank vs 5 years ago
- −8,684
- Places dropped
- Rank vs 10 years ago
- −6,566
- Places dropped
- Births vs 10 years ago
- 0.42×
- Fewer babies than then
- Share of its own peak
- 25.0%
- Peak was 1921 (20)
- Years since peak
- 104
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Volatile
- 36.2% average annual change
Spellings of Grethel
Grethel is not the most common spelling — Ethel is, with 81.8% against Grethel's 0.18%.
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 Grethel is used
Across 1910–2025, Grethel was most concentrated in Arkansas — about 1 in — girls, against 1 in 661,508 across all states with data. It was least common in West Virginia (1 in —).
Most concentrated
- 1Arkansas1 in —
- 2California1 in —
- 3Kentucky1 in —
- 4Texas1 in —
- 5West Virginia1 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. Grethel has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.
Grethel by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
Names similar to Grethel
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Grethel
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.