Coretta
Feminine · “maiden”
This name peaked in the year of a funeral the whole country watched. Coretta Scott King had been a public figure in her own right for a decade before her husband was killed, and the American record shows the name reaching its highest point in the year it happened and falling away afterwards.
How old is the name Coretta?
Coretta first appears in US birth records in 1909 — 116 years ago. The typical Coretta alive today was born around 1970, making them about 55 years old. About 2,100 people named Coretta are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Coretta most popular?
Coretta peaked in 1968, reaching #524 nationally. See the whole 1968 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Cora to Coretta
The story of Coretta
She was a trained singer with a degree from the New England Conservatory, she had been active in peace and civil rights work before the marriage, and she spent the four decades after the assassination building the King Center, campaigning for the federal holiday and taking positions her husband had not lived to take. The name itself is older and quieter: Cora with an Italian ending, in American records from the early twentieth century. What the chart shows is the ordinary shape of a name attached to a public event — a sharp peak in a single year, and then a long decline.
Meaningscholars disagree
maiden
The base is generally traced through Cora to a Greek word for a girl. The ending is Italian and adds affection rather than sense.
How the name formed
- Cora
- Coretta
Pronouncing Coretta
kuh-RET-uh
Three syllables with the weight in the middle. The doubled t is what puts the stress there.
Nicknames for Coretta
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
- 1909
- Most girls named
- 1968336 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #524reached in 1968
- Change vs 2021
- −58.3%5 in 2024, from 12
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.
Corettas among us
people named Coretta 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
Coretta 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
- Every part of it is familiar, so the name is read correctly at sight.
- It carries three short forms with quite different characters.
- It is attached to one of the most consequential American lives of the last century.
- The association with one woman is very strong and unlikely to fade.
- Coretta, Loretta and Corretta are near neighbors and will be confused.
- It reads clearly as a name of the middle of the twentieth century.
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Coretta
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Corettas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,100 people named Coretta are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Coretta in 2025?
- Coretta is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Coretta with classmates?
- Coretta will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More C names
The most-given names starting with C, all years combined.
Carol#2239 · Cynthia#1013 · Catherine#313 · Christine#1272 · Carolyn#1222 · Christina#770 · Charlotte#2 · Cheryl#4352
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Coretta? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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