Althea
Feminine · Greek roots · “healing”
Althea is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 17,980 girls against 5 boys since 1880.
Althea comes from the Greek Althaia, the name of a queen of Calydon in the old myths, and it has been read since antiquity alongside the Greek verb for healing. English poets took it up as a pastoral name — Richard Lovelace addressed his most famous lines "To Althea, from Prison" in the seventeenth century — and botanists gave it to the marshmallow and the rose of Sharon. Three syllables, the stress usually in the middle, with that soft th at the center.
How old is the name Althea?
Althea was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Althea alive today was born around 1951, making them about 74 years old. About 10,000 people named Althea are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Althea most popular?
Althea peaked in 1920, reaching #356 nationally. Today it ranks #1299, 943 places below that high. See the whole 1920 chart.
Althea appears on these lists:
Where it comes from
From Althaia (Greek) to Althea
The story of Althea
The name begins as Althaia in Greek, borne in myth by the queen of Calydon and mother of Meleager, and passed into Latin as Althaea. Renaissance and seventeenth-century English writers adopted it as a poetic name for a woman addressed in verse — Lovelace's "To Althea, from Prison" is the best-known example, and it kept the name in circulation long after the myth had faded from everyday reading. Botany carried it too: Althaea is the genus of the marshmallow plant, and American gardeners still call the rose of Sharon an althea. By the time American records begin, the name was already in use, and it has stayed on the books without interruption ever since.
Meaning
healing
From Greek althainein, "to heal" — the same root behind the plant genus Althaea, the marshmallows, long used in remedies.
How the name formed
- AlthaiaGreek
- AlthaeaLatin
- AltheaEnglish
Related forms: Althaia · Althaea · Altea · Altea · Althée
Pronouncing Althea
al-THEE-uh
Stress on the middle syllable is the usual American pronunciation. A first-syllable version, AL-thee-uh, is also heard, and both are accepted — expect to state your preference now and then.
Nicknames for Althea
High
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
- 1880
- Most girls named
- 1957352 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #356reached in 1920
- Change vs 2022
- −2.3%171 in 2025, from 175
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.
Althea in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Althaia in Greek — same name
- Althaea in Latin — same name
- Altea in Italian — related form
- Altea in Spanish — related form
- Althée in French — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, New York, Pennsylvania.
Altheas among us
people named Althea are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 9,399 born in 2025 was named Althea
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 Lauretta test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Althea's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Lauretta climbed just as high around 1904, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Lauretta's path sketches the road Althea is walking now.
Althea 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 Althea is headed
Althea should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
Medium 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.
Althea beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Althea in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Comes with Thea already attached — a short form that needs no explanation and works as a standalone name.
- Spelled the way it sounds once heard, with no silent letters or doubled consonants to negotiate.
- On the American record continuously since national name records began, never absent, never a fad.
- Recognizable beyond English through the plant name Althaea and the Greek myth of Calydon.
- It gets confused with Alethea, a separate name meaning "truth," and with the botanical spelling Althaea. Expect to correct Althia, Altha and Alethea over a lifetime.
- Two stress patterns are both in use, al-THEE-uh and AL-thee-uh, so you will be asked which you mean.
- Most people carrying it today belong to older generations, so it may read as a grandmother's name to some ears and as an unfamiliar new one to others — and a child with it will likely be the only one in her school.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Althea
Feminine · Greek roots · #1299 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Altheas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 10,000 people named Althea are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Althea in 2025?
- Althea ranks #1299 among US girl names in 2025, with 171 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Althea?
- About 1 in every 9,399 US girls born in 2025 was named Althea — 171 in all.
- Will my child share the name Althea with classmates?
- Althea will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Althea
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Lizbeth#1299 · Elayna#1299 · Jaylee#1299 · Blossom#1299 · Kodi#1299 · Kaycee#1299 · Rae#1299 · Sonia#1299
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Althea? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Althea and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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