Hertha
Feminine
Hertha exists because of a mistake in a manuscript. Tacitus describes a Germanic goddess carried around the countryside in a covered wagon, and the name in the surviving manuscripts was long read as Hertha; modern editors are confident the correct reading is Nerthus. The name entered German use on the strength of the misreading and stayed there after the correction.
How old is the name Hertha?
Hertha first appears in US birth records in 1886 — 139 years ago. The typical Hertha alive today was born around 1917, making them about 108 years old. About 100 people named Hertha are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Hertha most popular?
Hertha peaked in 1902, reaching #571 nationally. See the whole 1902 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From A goddess described by Tacitus in a covered wagon to Hertha
The story of Hertha
Tacitus describes the rite in some detail. The goddess travels in a wagon covered with cloth, drawn by cattle, which only a priest may touch; wherever she goes there is peace and no weapons are handled; and when she has had enough of human company the wagon, the cloth and the goddess are washed in a hidden lake by slaves, who are then drowned in it. That last detail is the one everybody remembers and it is the reason the passage is quoted so often. Whether Tacitus had reliable information about any of it is a real question: he was writing from Rome about peoples he had not visited, partly to hold a mirror up to his own society. The name that reached German nurseries came out of that passage and out of a copying error inside it.
Meaningnot established
Not established
There is no meaning, because the word is a scribal misreading rather than a name that anybody used. Attempts to connect it to the German word for earth are exactly the folk reasoning that made the misreading plausible in the first place. The goddess's actual name is now read differently and its own meaning is disputed among specialists.
How the name formed
- A goddess described by Tacitus in a covered wagon
- Her name misread in the surviving manuscripts
- Hertha taken up as a German woman's name
- Carried to America by German families
Related forms: Hertha · Hertha
Pronouncing Hertha
HER-tuh
Two syllables, stress on the first. German says the th as a plain t, since German has no th sound, so the h in the middle is silent in the language the name comes from and often pronounced in English.
Nicknames for Hertha
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
- 1886
- Most girls named
- 191665 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #571reached in 1902
- Change vs 1963
- −28.6%5 in 1965, from 7
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.
Hertha in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Hertha in German — same name
- Hertha in Swedish — same name
Herthas among us
people named Hertha 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
Hertha 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
- It is short, strong and completely unambiguous in speech.
- It has a documented and genuinely strange origin that can be told quickly.
- It is used unchanged in German and Scandinavian families.
- There is no meaning, and the name exists because of a copying error.
- The th is said differently in German and English, which a bilingual family will notice.
- It is very firmly of an earlier generation and reads as heavily German.
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Hertha
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Herthas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 100 people named Hertha are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Hertha in 2025?
- Hertha is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Hertha with classmates?
- Hertha will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More H names
The most-given names starting with H, all years combined.
Helen#461 · Heather#1261 · Hannah#56 · Hazel#21 · Holly#416 · Hailey#104 · Haley#861 · Heidi#340
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Hertha? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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