Aleta
Feminine · “truth”
The Greek for truth is a negative. Aletheia is built from a prefix meaning not and a word meaning forgetting — so truth, in Greek, is what has not been allowed to slip away, the opposite of oblivion rather than the opposite of a lie. Aleta is generally traced to that word, and it got a very large push from an American comic strip.
How old is the name Aleta?
Aleta first appears in US birth records in 1892 — 133 years ago. The typical Aleta alive today was born around 1954, making them about 71 years old. About 4,600 people named Aleta are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Aleta most popular?
Aleta peaked in 1947, reaching #511 nationally. Today it ranks #14942, 14,431 places below that high. See the whole 1947 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From aletheia to Aleta
The story of Aleta
Alethea entered English use in the seventeenth century with the other Greek virtue names. Aleta appears in American records from 1892, then rises sharply in the 1940s — which is not a coincidence: a hugely popular newspaper comic strip introduced a Queen Aleta of the Misty Isles at the end of the 1930s, and the strip ran in hundreds of papers. The name's American peak in 1947 follows that closely, which is exactly the shape a name takes when a single visible bearer supplies it.
Meaningscholars disagree
truth
If the name descends from Aletheia, the Greek is a-, not, joined to lethe, forgetting — the river of forgetfulness in the underworld carries the same word. That derivation is the usual one and it is not certain: Aleta may equally be a form of Alethea shortened, or a name built from sound in nineteenth-century America. The Greek reading is the more interesting and the less secure.
How the name formed
- aletheia
- Alethea
- Aleta
Related forms: Aletheia · Aleta
Pronouncing Aleta
uh-LEE-tuh
Three syllables, stress in the middle. Some families say uh-LAY-tuh with a long middle vowel; both are heard, and the spelling does not settle it.
Nicknames for Aleta
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1892
- Most girls named
- 1954205 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #511reached in 1947
- Change vs 2022
- −54.5%5 in 2025, from 11
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Aleta in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Aletheia in Greek — related form
- Aleta in Spanish — same name
Aletas among us
people named Aleta are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 321,453 born in 2025 was named Aleta
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Aleta
- #14942
- Aleta on the 2025 chart
- #933
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Aleta went to 5 girls in 2025, but Aletta is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 27, which makes it the 933rd most-given girls’ name of the year — 14,009 places above the chart.
- Aletta22
- Aleta5
About 1 girl in 59,528 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 321,453 for Aleta itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Vivien test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Aleta's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Vivien climbed just as high around 1911, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Vivien's path sketches the road Aleta is walking now.
Aleta sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Aleta beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Aleta in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The Greek word behind it is one of the more interesting in the language and takes a sentence to unpack.
- Five letters, three light syllables, and easy in any accent.
- Lettie and Allie are both available and belong to different generations.
- The middle vowel is unsettled, so the name arrives two ways.
- Alita, Aletta and Alethea all sit close by and will be written instead.
- It belongs to a mid-century American generation and carries that flavor.
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What they receive
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Aleta
Feminine · #14942 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Aletas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 4,600 people named Aleta are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Aleta?
- Aleta is one of 2 recorded spellings. Aletta is the more common one — 22 births in 2025 against 5 for Aleta.
- How popular is the name Aleta in 2025?
- Aleta ranks #14942 among US girl names in 2025, with 5 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Aleta?
- About 1 in every 321,453 US girls born in 2025 was named Aleta — 5 in all.
- Will my child share the name Aleta with classmates?
- Aleta will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Aleta
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Hester#14942 · Lyda#14942 · Zula#14942 · Zona#14942 · Ula#14942 · Belva#14942 · Lucetta#14942 · Leala#14942
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Aleta? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Aleta and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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