Aletta
Feminine · “Noble kind”
Aletta is a Dutch and Italian diminutive, and it has more than one parent: Adelaide by way of Aleida, and Alice by way of Alet. Both roads run back to the Germanic word for noble, and neither can be assigned to a particular bearer.
How old is the name Aletta?
Aletta first appears in US birth records in 1892 — 133 years ago. The typical Aletta alive today was born around 1961, making them about 64 years old. About 700 people named Aletta are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Aletta most popular?
Aletta peaked in 1935, reaching #1162 nationally. Today it ranks #5554, 4,392 places below that high. See the whole 1935 chart.
Where it comes from
From Adalheidis to Aletta
The story of Aletta
Dutch naming makes diminutives freely with -tje, -tta and -ke, and Aletta is one of the older ones, ordinary in the Netherlands from the seventeenth century. Its most consequential bearer is Aletta Jacobs, who in 1871 became the first woman admitted to a Dutch university and then the country's first woman doctor; she opened the world's first birth-control clinic in Amsterdam in 1882 and led the Dutch suffrage movement. The name reached America with Dutch and Italian families, and its modest peak in 1935 belongs to those communities. It has been rare in American records since 1950.
Meaningscholars disagree
Noble kind, of noble sort
Aletta is generally a Dutch diminutive of Aleida, itself from the Germanic Adalheidis — adal, noble, and heid, kind — which is the same source as Adelaide and Alice. That chain is settled for those names. An Italian Aletta, a diminutive of Alessandra or a word for a small wing, is separately proposed. Which applies to a given bearer is not recoverable.
How the name formed
- Adalheidis
- Aleida
- Aletta
Related forms: Aletta · Aletta · Adelheid · Alice
Pronouncing Aletta
ah-LET-ah
Three syllables, stress in the middle, with the double t held in Dutch and Italian. English speakers say uh-LET-uh, dropping the length.
Nicknames for Aletta
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
- 193628 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1162reached in 1935
- Change vs 2023
- +22.2%22 in 2025, from 18
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.
Aletta in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Aletta in Dutch — same name
- Aletta in Italian — same name
- Adelheid in German — related form
- Alice in English — related form
Alettas among us
people named Aletta are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 73,058 born in 2025 was named Aletta
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Aletta
- #5554
- Aletta on the 2025 chart
- #933
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Aletta went to 22 girls in 2025, but Aleta 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 — 4,621 places above the chart.
- Aletta22
- Aleta5
About 1 girl in 59,528 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 73,058 for Aletta 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 Stefania test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Aletta's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Stefania climbed just as high around 1917, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Stefania's path sketches the road Aletta is walking now.
Aletta 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
Aletta beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Aletta in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The Germanic root is settled and the meaning is flattering.
- Ali and Letta both work as short forms.
- It has a genuinely remarkable Dutch bearer.
- It is unfamiliar in English-speaking countries and will be spelled out.
- Aletta, Alethea and Aletha are close enough to be confused.
- The two possible parent names are different, though the root is shared.
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Aletta
Feminine · #5554 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Alettas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 700 people named Aletta are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Aletta?
- Aletta is the most-used spelling in US records — 22 of the 27 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Aleta.
- How popular is the name Aletta in 2025?
- Aletta ranks #5554 among US girl names in 2025, with 22 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Aletta?
- About 1 in every 73,058 US girls born in 2025 was named Aletta — 22 in all.
- Will my child share the name Aletta with classmates?
- Aletta will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Aletta
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Eda#5554 · Phebe#5554 · Felicia#5554 · Audie#5554 · Maryellen#5554 · Warren#5554 · Ruthann#5554 · Nettie#5554
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Aletta? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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