Aretha
Feminine · “excellence”
Arete was the central word in Greek ethics and it does not translate cleanly. It is usually rendered virtue, which is too narrow and too moral — arete meant excellence at being the thing you are, so a knife has it and a horse has it and a person has it, and the Greeks argued for centuries about what it consisted of in a human being.
How old is the name Aretha?
Aretha first appears in US birth records in 1900 — 125 years ago. The typical Aretha alive today was born around 1967, making them about 58 years old. About 4,400 people named Aretha are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Aretha most popular?
Aretha peaked in 1968, reaching #397 nationally. See the whole 1968 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From arete to Aretha
The story of Aretha
The word is at the center of Greek moral philosophy: the question of what human arete is, and whether it can be taught, is the argument Plato's dialogues keep returning to. As a name it appears in Homer and in the Greek Christian tradition, and it reached English use in the nineteenth century when families were taking names from Greek. Aretha and Aletha arrived together in American records — two Greek abstractions, excellence and truth, chosen for the same reason and often by the same kind of family — and they are constantly mistaken for variants of each other.
Meaning
excellence
Greek arete means excellence or the full realization of a thing's function, and it is the word Homer uses for a warrior's prowess and Aristotle uses for the state of character that makes a good life possible. Virtue is the standard English rendering and it carries a moral narrowness the Greek does not have. The derivation of the name from the word is not disputed. Arete is also the name of a queen in the Odyssey, which is where it first appears as a personal name.
How the name formed
- arete
- Arete
- Aretha
Related forms: ἀρετή · Areti
Pronouncing Aretha
uh-REE-thuh
uh-REE-thuh, three syllables, stress in the middle, the th as in think. Greek says ah-reh-TEE with the weight at the end and a plain t; the English reading has been stable since the name arrived and is the one it gets.
Nicknames for Aretha
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
- 1900
- Most girls named
- 1967385 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #397reached in 1968
- Change vs 2021
- 0.0%6 in 2023, from 6
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.
Aretha in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- ἀρετή in Greek — transliteration
- Areti in Greek — same name
Arethas among us
people named Aretha are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Aretha sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- The word behind it is one of the most important in Greek thought and genuinely worth explaining.
- Rae and Retha are both usable short forms and they sound quite different.
- The th is a real Greek consonant here rather than a spelling habit, so the name is said as written.
- Aletha and Aretha are both Greek abstractions with similar shapes, and they get confused constantly.
- The name is closely tied to the middle of the last century in America and dates a person fairly precisely.
- The meaning is usually translated as virtue, which is narrower and more moralizing than the Greek intends.
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Aretha
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Arethas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 4,400 people named Aretha are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Aretha in 2025?
- Aretha is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Aretha with classmates?
- Aretha will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More A names
The most-given names starting with A, all years combined.
Anna#107 · Ashley#164 · Amanda#493 · Amy#257 · Angela#408 · Alice#65 · Ann#1076 · Andrea#235
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Aretha? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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