Zita
Feminine · “little girl”
Zita of Bourbon-Parma outlived her empire by seventy-one years. Empress of Austria in 1916, exiled in 1919, she wore mourning for her husband from 1922 until her death in 1989 at ninety-six, having been born before the invention of the airplane.
How old is the name Zita?
Zita first appears in US birth records in 1882 — 143 years ago. The typical Zita alive today was born around 1933, making them about 92 years old. About 1,300 people named Zita are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Zita most popular?
Zita peaked in 1884, reaching #640 nationally. Today it ranks #6838, 6,198 places below that high. See the whole 1884 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From zita to Zita
The story of Zita
Zita of Lucca, who died in 1272, entered service as a maid at twelve and stayed with the same household for forty-eight years; she is the patron saint of domestic servants and of people who have lost their keys, and her body is displayed incorrupt in Lucca. Her name spread through Italy and into Catholic Europe. Zita of Bourbon-Parma, named for her, married the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne in 1911, became empress in 1916, and spent the next seven decades in exile in Spain, Belgium, Quebec and the United States. The name's American peak is 1884, before either woman was widely known in the country.
Meaningscholars disagree
little girl, maiden
Italian zita or cita, a girl or an unmarried young woman, is the usual derivation, and the Tuscan dialect word is attested. The related zitella means a spinster. A competing route connects the name to a Persian or Hungarian source, and it is not supported. The word's own origin in Italian is not fully recovered.
How the name formed
- zita
- Zita
Related forms: Zita · Zita · Cita
Pronouncing Zita
ZEE-tah
Two syllables with the stress on the first. Italian gives the z a ts sound, so an Italian speaker says TSEE-tah, which is noticeably different.
Nicknames for Zita
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
- 192269 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #640reached in 1884
- Change vs 2022
- +23.1%16 in 2025, from 13
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.
Zita in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Zita in Italian — same name
- Zita in Hungarian — same name
- Cita in Spanish — spelling variant
Zitas among us
people named Zita are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 100,454 born in 2025 was named Zita
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
Zita 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
Zita beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Zita in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A documented medieval saint and a documented twentieth-century empress.
- Four letters and no spelling difficulty in any language.
- The Z opening makes it immediately distinctive.
- The Italian z is a ts sound, which English speakers do not use.
- Zeta and Zita are separate names and get confused.
- It reads as a nineteenth-century name in American records.
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What they receive
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Zita
Feminine · #6838 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Zitas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,300 people named Zita are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Zita in 2025?
- Zita ranks #6838 among US girl names in 2025, with 16 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Zita?
- About 1 in every 100,454 US girls born in 2025 was named Zita — 16 in all.
- Will my child share the name Zita with classmates?
- Zita will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Zita
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Malana#6838 · Jeannie#6838 · Maxie#6838 · Nicol#6838 · Chaney#6838 · Keana#6838 · Concetta#6838 · Pheobe#6838
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Zita? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Zita and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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