Letha
Feminine
Letha is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 19,137 girls against 25 boys since 1880.
Letha sits between two Greek words that mean opposite things. Lethe is the river of forgetting in the underworld; aletheia is truth, which is literally the un-forgetting. The name can be read either way.
How old is the name Letha?
Letha was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Letha alive today was born around 1926, making them about 99 years old. About 5,700 people named Letha are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Letha most popular?
Letha peaked in 1903, reaching #231 nationally. See the whole 1903 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From aletheia to Letha
The story of Letha
Greek vocabulary was fashionable in nineteenth-century American naming, and Alethea had been in English use since the seventeenth century as a virtue name of the Puritan kind. Its clipped form Letha appears in American registers from the 1870s, alongside Aletha and Alethia, and peaked around 1900 — part of the same wave that produced Ora, Alta, Vesta and Eula.
Meaningscholars disagree
Not established
Read as a shortening of Aletha or Alethea, the meaning is the Greek aletheia, 'truth' — formed from the negative a- and lethe, 'forgetfulness', so truth is what is not forgotten. Read as Lethe itself, the meaning is the opposite: the river of oblivion. Nineteenth-century American families used both, and the registers do not distinguish them.
How the name formed
- aletheia
- Alethea
- Letha
Related forms: Aletheia · Aletha · Leatha
Pronouncing Letha
LEE-thuh
Two syllables, stress on the first, th as in 'thin'. Some families said LETH-uh with a short first vowel; both are recorded.
Nicknames for Letha
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
- 1880
- Most girls named
- 1918473 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #231reached in 1903
- Change vs 2015
- −37.5%5 in 2020, from 8
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.
Letha in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Aletheia in Greek — related form
- Aletha in English — related form
- Leatha in English — spelling variant
Lethas among us
people named Letha 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
Letha has already lived its whole cycle: it rose, had its era, and has stepped off the charts. The fashion question is behind it — what lies ahead is the waiting room where revivals begin, once a name's first generation has grown distant enough for it to sound fresh again.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- The truth reading is transparent and unusually attractive, and the Greek behind it is genuinely elegant.
- Thea is available as a short form with real currency now.
- Two soft syllables with no hard consonants.
- The two readings point in opposite directions — truth and oblivion.
- Two pronunciations of the first vowel are recorded.
- It is strongly period-coded to the turn of the last century.
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Letha
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Lethas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 5,700 people named Letha are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Letha in 2025?
- Letha is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Letha with classmates?
- Letha will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More L names
The most-given names starting with L, all years combined.
Linda#902 · Lisa#987 · Laura#379 · Lauren#401 · Lillian#57 · Lori#1721 · Louise#514 · Lois#1666
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Letha? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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