Lethia
Feminine
Laetitia means joy, and English wore it down until it sounded like a salad. Lettice was the ordinary English form for four hundred years — a perfectly serious name carried by countesses — and it went out of use largely because the vegetable caught up with it.
How old is the name Lethia?
Lethia first appears in US birth records in 1886 — 139 years ago. The typical Lethia alive today was born around 1931, making them about 94 years old. About 400 people named Lethia are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Lethia most popular?
Lethia peaked in 1886, reaching #897 nationally. See the whole 1886 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From a Latin noun meaning gladness to Lethia
The story of Lethia
The path from Laetitia to Lettice is ordinary English sound change: the Latin was shortened in French, the French was worn down in English mouths, and the result collided with a garden vegetable that had been imported under a similar name. Names do not usually survive that. Lettice hung on among the aristocracy longer than anywhere else, which is where unfashionable names always survive longest, and the fuller Latin form came back in the nineteenth century as a rather grander alternative.
Meaningnot established
Not established
Several parents are possible and none can be shown: Letitia, whose Latin means gladness; Alethia, which is Greek for truth; or a coinage on a fashionable ending. The record shows the name in the American South from the 1880s, which is exactly where and when all three were plausible, and gives no indication which a family meant.
How the name formed
- a Latin noun meaning gladness
- French and English wear it down to Lettice
- the vegetable makes the short form unusable
- the fuller Latin form returns in the nineteenth century
- Lethia appears in American records in the 1880s
Related forms: Letitia · Leticia
Pronouncing Lethia
LEE-thee-uh
Three syllables with the stress at the front. Some families say luh-THY-uh, which the spelling permits equally well.
Nicknames for Lethia
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
- 191724 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #897reached in 1886
- Change vs 1978
- +20.0%6 in 2004, from 5
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.
Lethia in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Letitia in English — related form
- Leticia in Spanish — related form
Lethias among us
people named Lethia 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
Lethia 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
- Lettie is available and is being rediscovered along with the rest of its generation.
- It is soft and unusual and read correctly once the stress is settled.
- It is genuinely unrepeated now.
- There is no settled origin and three candidates.
- The stress placement is genuinely unsettled.
- It belongs to the oldest layer of the American record.
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Lethia
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Lethias are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 400 people named Lethia are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Lethia in 2025?
- Lethia is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Lethia with classmates?
- Lethia 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 Lethia? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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