Ruthe
Girls' nameMeaning not yet documented
Ruthe has been given to 1,949 babies in the U.S. since 1898. 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 1924, with 122 recorded.
Babies named Ruthe, 1973
1 in 603,000
Ruthe 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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.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 Ruthe?
Ruthe had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1973, the last year it was published.
- Among all babies, 1973
- 1 in 603,000
- 5 of 3,016,706 births
- Among girls only
- 1 in 292,000
- <0.01% of girls
- Rank, 1973
- Unranked
- Fewer than 5 uses
- Coin-flip room size
- 418,205 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Ruthe sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 1973 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 418,205 children born in 1973 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Ruthe. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Ruthes were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Ruthe was born before 1924 — so the typical Ruthe is around 101 today.
- Biggest decade
- 1920s
- 45.0% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 8.1%
- Mostly a past generation
- Recorded since 1950
- 136
- People you could plausibly meet
1920s — 45.0% of all recorded uses (877).
Is Ruthe 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 1924 (122)
- Years since peak
- 101
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Volatile
- 26.8% average annual change
Spellings of Ruthe
Ruthe is not the most common spelling — Ruth is, with 93.4% against Ruthe's 0.22%.
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 Ruthe is used
Across 1910–2025, Ruthe was most concentrated in Iowa — about 1 in 100,000 girls, against 1 in 172,208 across all states with data. It was least common in Wisconsin (1 in —).
Most concentrated
- 1Iowa1 in 100,000
- 2Illinois1 in 100,000
- 3Massachusetts1 in 100,000
- 4Michigan1 in 100,000
- 5New York1 in 100,000
- 6Ohio1 in 100,000
- 7Pennsylvania1 in 100,000
- 8California1 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. Ruthe has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.
Ruthe around the world
Where Ruthe 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.
- France1918–1918#944in 1918
- South Australia1968–1968#679in 1968
Popularity data from Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.
Ruthe by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
Names similar to Ruthe
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Ruthe
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.