Patrica
Feminine · “of the noble class”
Patrica is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 9,147 girls against 10 boys since 1880.
Patrica is Patricia with one letter gone from a syllable nobody stresses. The name behind it and the name Patrick are the same Latin word — patricius, a member of Rome's hereditary governing class — and the Irish saint who made it famous was a Roman Briton before he was anything else.
How old is the name Patrica?
Patrica first appears in US birth records in 1911 — 114 years ago. The typical Patrica alive today was born around 1959, making them about 66 years old. About 6,900 people named Patrica are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Patrica most popular?
Patrica peaked in 1950, reaching #551 nationally. See the whole 1950 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From patricius to Patrica
The story of Patrica
Patrick was a Romanized Briton, taken to Ireland as a slave, who escaped and returned as a missionary, and his name is simply the Latin word for his social class — the sort of name a provincial Roman family would give. Ireland made it a national name; Britain and America made it an ordinary one. Patricia is the feminine, and it barely existed before the twentieth century, when it became one of the most-used women's names in the English-speaking world within a generation. The dropped i in this spelling reflects how the name is actually said: the syllable is unstressed and collapses in ordinary speech.
Meaning
of the noble class
Latin patricius describes a patrician, a member of the families entitled to sit in the Senate, and the word is built on pater, father, because the order was defined by descent from a small number of founding houses. Patrick and Patricia are the masculine and feminine of the same word. The meaning is a class rather than a quality, which makes it unusual among name meanings and rather more concrete than most.
How the name formed
- patricius
- Patricia
- Patrica
Related forms: Patricia · Patrizia · Patricia · Pádraigín
Pronouncing Patrica
puh-TRISH-uh
puh-TRISH-uh, three syllables, stress in the middle, the ci said as sh. Patricia has the same three syllables in ordinary speech — the extra i is not sounded — which is exactly why this spelling exists and why the difference is invisible in conversation.
Nicknames for Patrica
High
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 girls named
- 1962302 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #551reached in 1950
- Change vs 2007
- −33.3%6 in 2009, from 9
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.
Patrica in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Patricia in Spanish — same name
- Patrizia in Italian — same name
- Patricia in French — same name
- Pádraigín in Irish — related form
Patricas among us
people named Patrica 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
Patrica 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
- The spelling matches how the name is genuinely said rather than how it is historically written.
- Pat, Tricia and Trish are three quite different short forms in three registers.
- The Latin behind it is documented, concrete and shared with one of the best-known saints in Europe.
- Patricia is the standard spelling and this one will be corrected toward it on essentially every document.
- Because the difference cannot be heard, defending the spelling is a purely visual argument.
- The name is very strongly associated with one American generation and dates a person closely.
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What they receive
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Patrica
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Patricas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 6,900 people named Patrica are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Patrica in 2025?
- Patrica is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Patrica with classmates?
- Patrica will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More P names
The most-given names starting with P, all years combined.
Patricia#1334 · Pamela#2239 · Phyllis#11932 · Peggy#8362 · Paula#853 · Pauline#2957 · Pearl#776 · Paige#346
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Patrica? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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