Demetra
Feminine · “mother”
Demetra is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 4,205 girls against 12 boys since 1880.
For nearly two thousand years, people were initiated at Eleusis into a rite about Demeter and her daughter, and not one of them ever wrote down what happened. Thousands of initiates, across the whole span of the Greek and Roman world, and the secret held. It is the best-kept secret in ancient history.
How old is the name Demetra?
Demetra first appears in US birth records in 1912 — 113 years ago. The typical Demetra alive today was born around 1972, making them about 53 years old. About 3,500 people named Demetra are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Demetra most popular?
Demetra peaked in 1966, reaching #900 nationally. Today it ranks #11932, 11,032 places below that high. See the whole 1966 chart.
Where it comes from
From Demeter to Demetra
The story of Demetra
The Eleusinian Mysteries ran from about the seventh century BC until a Christian emperor closed them in the fourth century AD, and they were open to anyone who spoke Greek and had not committed murder — women, foreigners and enslaved people included, which was extraordinary. Initiates walked fourteen miles from Athens, fasted, drank something, and were shown something in a hall at Eleusis. Writers who went describe the effect and never the content: they say it changed how they thought about dying. The penalty for revealing it was death, but the more striking fact is that nobody seems to have wanted to. Demeter, whose daughter is taken and returned, is what the rite was about.
Meaningscholars disagree
mother; possibly earth mother
The second element, meter, is certainly mother. The first is not settled: an old word for earth, a word for grain, and a word for barley have all been proposed and none has won. So the name is half known and half argued about, which is unusual for a major Greek deity.
How the name formed
- Demeter
- Demetra
Related forms: Dimitra · Dumitra · Dmitria
Pronouncing Demetra
duh-MEE-truh
Three syllables, stress in the middle. Greek gives every vowel its full value, dee-MEE-trah. The e in the first syllable is reduced almost to nothing in American speech.
Nicknames for Demetra
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
- 1912
- Most girls named
- 1970105 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #900reached in 1966
- Change vs 2023
- +16.7%7 in 2025, 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.
Demetra in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Dimitra in Greek — same name
- Dumitra in Romanian — same name
- Dmitria in Russian — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Illinois.
Demetras among us
people named Demetra are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 229,610 born in 2025 was named Demetra
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 Aldona test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Demetra's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Aldona climbed just as high around 1918, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Aldona's path sketches the road Demetra is walking now.
Demetra 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
Demetra beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Demetra in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- One of the oldest continuously recorded names in Europe, with a documented cult behind it.
- Three short forms, two of which are full names elsewhere.
- Three syllables with a clear central stress that people read correctly.
- Dimitra and Demetria are both used, so the spelling will need giving.
- It is the name of a goddess, which is a great deal of weight for a small person.
- The very few boys given this spelling will be read as girls on paper.
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What they receive
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Demetra
Feminine · #11932 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Demetras are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 3,500 people named Demetra are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Demetra in 2025?
- Demetra ranks #11932 among US girl names in 2025, with 7 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Demetra?
- About 1 in every 229,610 US girls born in 2025 was named Demetra — 7 in all.
- Will my child share the name Demetra with classmates?
- Demetra will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Demetra
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Vina#11932 · Retta#11932 · Missouri#11932 · Iola#11932 · Eddie#11932 · Thomas#11932 · Louetta#11932 · Elvina#11932
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Demetra? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Demetra and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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