Rhea
Feminine · Ancient Greek roots · “Contested: 'flow' or 'earth”
Rhea is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 19,737 girls against 408 boys since 1880.
Rhea is the name of the Titaness of Greek myth — daughter of Gaia and Ouranos, mother of Zeus — and it has been written down, in one alphabet or another, for well over two and a half thousand years. It is two syllables long and ends in the open vowel that Mia, Nia and Thea share, so it carries easily across a room. A moon of Saturn and a tall flightless bird of South America both take their names from her.
How old is the name Rhea?
Rhea first appears in US birth records in 1882 — 143 years ago. The typical Rhea alive today was born around 1984, making them about 41 years old. About 14,000 people named Rhea are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Rhea most popular?
Rhea peaked in 1893, reaching #360 nationally. Today it ranks #639, 279 places below that high. See the whole 1893 chart.
Where it comes from
From Rheia (Ancient Greek Ῥέα) to Rhea
The story of Rhea
Rhea belongs to the first generation of Greek gods: in Hesiod's Theogony, written around the eighth or seventh century BC, she is the Titaness who hides the infant Zeus in Crete and hands his father a swaddled stone instead. Her worship was especially strong in Crete, and the Romans folded her together with the Anatolian mother-goddess Cybele, keeping the name Rhea in Latin. Roman legend gave the name again to Rhea Silvia, the Vestal said to have borne Romulus and Remus. It came into English-language use as a classical revival name in the nineteenth century, alongside the naturalists who gave it to the South American bird and the astronomers who gave it to Saturn's second-largest moon.
Meaningscholars disagree
Contested: 'flow' or 'earth'
Plato, in the Cratylus, connected Rhea to the Greek verb rhein, 'to flow', a reading repeated by ancient writers who linked her to streams and currents. Others tie the name to era, an old Greek word for earth or ground, which suits her role as an earth-mother figure. Many modern scholars think the name is older than Greek itself — pre-Greek, absorbed along with the goddess — and therefore not translatable at all.
How the name formed
- RheiaAncient Greek Ῥέα
- RheaLatin
- RheaEnglish
Related forms: Ῥέα / Rea · Rea · Rea · Rhéa · Rhea · Reia
Pronouncing Rhea
REE-uh
The h is silent — the Rh spelling comes straight from the Greek rough breathing. A RAY-uh pronunciation is occasionally heard, so it is worth saying the name aloud once when you introduce it.
Nicknames for Rhea
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
- 1882
- Most girls named
- 2022500 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #360reached in 1893
- Change vs 2022
- −9.6%452 in 2025, from 500
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.
Rhea in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Ῥέα / Rea in Greek — transliteration
- Rea in Italian — same name
- Rea in Spanish — same name
- Rhéa in French — spelling variant
- Rhea in German — same name
- Reia in Portuguese — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, New York.
Rheas among us
people named Rhea are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 3,556 born in 2025 was named Rhea
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
Fashion outlook
Rhea sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Rhea is headed
Rhea should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
High confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Rhea beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Rhea in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Two syllables, four letters, and no silent trap beyond the h — most people say it correctly on hearing it, even if they hesitate over the spelling.
- A documented written record stretching from Hesiod to modern astronomy, so it has never needed reviving from scratch.
- Works with little or no change in Greek, Italian, Spanish, French and German.
- Present in US records across generation after generation without ever crowding a classroom — familiar in sound, uncommon in person.
- The spelling will need repeating. Rea, Ria, Riya and Rae are all live alternatives, and the silent h is the first thing people drop when writing it down.
- In English, the letter string -rrhea belongs to some unlovely medical words. It is a different spelling and a different word, but children have made less of a connection than that before.
- Rhea is also the name of a large flightless bird and a moon of Saturn — both named after the goddess, both harmless, but both things a curious classmate may look up first.
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What they receive
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Rhea
Feminine · Ancient Greek roots · #639 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Rheas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 14,000 people named Rhea are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Rhea in 2025?
- Rhea ranks #639 among US girl names in 2025, with 452 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Rhea?
- About 1 in every 3,556 US girls born in 2025 was named Rhea — 452 in all.
- Will my child share the name Rhea with classmates?
- Rhea will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Rhea
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Azaria#638 · Violeta#640 · Lyric#640 · Oaklyn#637 · Ariah#636 · Ellianna#642 · Arlet#642 · Destiny#635
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Rhea? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Rhea and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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