Loretta
Masculine · Italian roots · “from Loreto”
Loretta is given to girls far more often — 177,564 girls against 502 boys since 1880. See Loretta as a girl name
Loretta takes its name from Loreto, the hill town near Italy's Adriatic coast whose shrine made Our Lady of Loreto a familiar title across Catholic Europe. In America two women put it firmly in the record: Loretta Walsh, who enlisted in the Navy in 1917, and Loretta Lynn, who sang about growing up a coal miner's daughter in Kentucky.
How old is the name Loretta?
Loretta first appears in US birth records in 1911 — 114 years ago. The typical Loretta alive today was born around 1940, making them about 85 years old. About 200 people named Loretta are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Loretta most popular?
Loretta peaked in 1911, reaching #1387 nationally. See the whole 1911 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Loreto (Italian place name) to Loretta
The story of Loretta
The shrine at Loreto made the town's name a devotional name in Catholic countries, and Loretta, with the Italian -etta ending, became the English-speaking form. Loretta Perfectus Walsh was sworn in as a chief yeoman in 1917, the first woman to enlist in the United States Navy in a role other than nurse. Loretta Lynn, born Loretta Webb in Butcher Hollow, Kentucky, turned her childhood in a mining family into the song Coal Miner's Daughter, and later into a memoir and a film of the same name.
Meaningscholars disagree
from Loreto, the Italian shrine town
Loretta is usually traced to Our Lady of Loreto, a Marian title. It has also served as a pet form of Laura, through Lauretta, and in any single family the two roads are hard to tell apart.
How the name formed
- LoretoItalian place name
- Loretta
Related forms: Loretta · Loreto · Lorette
Pronouncing Loretta
lor-ET-uh
Three syllables, stress on the middle one.
Nicknames for Loretta
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
- 1911
- Most boys named
- 193321 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1387reached in 1911
- Change vs 1971
- 0.0%5 in 1981, 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.
Loretta in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Loretta in Italian — same name
- Loreto in Spanish — related form
- Lorette in French — related form
Lorettas among us
people named Loretta 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
Loretta 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
- An established spelling with two well-known American namesakes.
- Tied to a famous shrine and Marian title, for families who value that link.
- Short forms are ready-made: Lori and Retta.
- Most people will think first of Loretta Lynn; the association is warm, but it is fixed.
- It is best known among women of earlier generations, so it reads as a vintage name.
- It is recorded for a handful of boys, but its -etta ending marks it as feminine in English, so a boy called Loretta will be read as a girl on paper.
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Loretta
Masculine · Italian roots
Frequently asked
- How many Lorettas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 200 people named Loretta are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Loretta in 2025?
- Loretta is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Loretta with classmates?
- Loretta will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More L names
The most-given names starting with L, all years combined.
Larry#1084 · Lawrence#518 · Louis#249 · Logan#53 · Liam#1 · Lucas#10 · Luke#33 · Leonard#637
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Loretta? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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