Alethea
Feminine · “truth”
Alethea is a Greek word for truth that English families adopted as a virtue name — which is unusual, because the Reformation-era virtue names are almost all plain English. This one arrived in Greek dress and stayed.
How old is the name Alethea?
Alethea first appears in US birth records in 1892 — 133 years ago. The typical Alethea alive today was born around 1974, making them about 51 years old. About 4,200 people named Alethea are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Alethea most popular?
Alethea peaked in 1973, reaching #522 nationally. Today it ranks #3028, 2,506 places below that high. See the whole 1973 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From aletheia to Alethea
The story of Alethea
English Puritans named children for virtues — Faith, Hope, Charity, Verity, Prudence, Constance — and Alethea joined them in the seventeenth century as the Greek version of Verity. That is a rarer route than it sounds: most of the group are ordinary English words, and Alethea came in through learning. It stayed in quiet English and American use ever since, most visibly in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and its American record has a clear second stretch in the twentieth.
Meaning
truth; unconcealment
Greek aletheia is the negative prefix a- with a root connected to lanthano, 'to escape notice', and lethe, 'forgetting' — so truth in Greek is literally what has not been hidden. The reading is documented. English spelled it Alethea and treated it as a name rather than a word, which is how it came to sit beside Faith and Prudence rather than beside philosophy.
How the name formed
- aletheia
- Alethea
Related forms: Aletheia · Verity · Aletea
Pronouncing Alethea
uh-LEE-thee-uh
Four syllables with the stress on the second, in the English form — which is where it differs from the Greek Aletheia, said with the stress later. The th is as in thin.
Nicknames for Alethea
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
- 1974201 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #522reached in 1973
- Change vs 2022
- −32.5%54 in 2025, from 80
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.
Alethea in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Aletheia in Greek — spelling variant
- Verity in English — related form
- Aletea in Spanish — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, New York.
Aletheas among us
people named Alethea are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 29,764 born in 2025 was named Alethea
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Mariann test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Alethea's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Mariann climbed just as high around 1957, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Mariann's path sketches the road Alethea is walking now.
Alethea 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
Where Alethea is headed
Alethea should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind. Its history is short or jumpy, though, so read this as a sketch rather than a promise.
Low confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Alethea beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Alethea in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Ali and Thea are both ready short forms and both are well-established names.
- A documented Greek meaning of real philosophical depth, in an English name with a long record.
- Four syllables give it real formality, with everyday forms available underneath.
- Alethea, Aletheia and Alithea all circulate and are said differently from each other.
- It is unfamiliar enough in the United States to be spelled out every time.
- Naming a child Truth is a large gesture, and people will say so.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Alethea to the vote.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Alethea
Feminine · #3028 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Aletheas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 4,200 people named Alethea are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Alethea in 2025?
- Alethea ranks #3028 among US girl names in 2025, with 54 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Alethea?
- About 1 in every 29,764 US girls born in 2025 was named Alethea — 54 in all.
- Will my child share the name Alethea with classmates?
- Alethea will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Alethea
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Boston#3028 · Daila#3028 · Auria#3028 · Minnie#3028 · Mallie#3028 · Adria#3028 · Joann#3028 · Aalayah#3028
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Alethea? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Alethea and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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Weighing a whole shortlist? Add the rest in the builder, or settle it with a bracket.
Cast your vote
Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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