Aretta — girls' name

What the Data Says About Aretta

The Social Security Administration has registered 1,142 babies named Aretta between 1900 and 1991, spanning 92 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a girl's name, Aretta currently falls outside the top 1,000 girls' names for 1991. The name reached its historical peak in 1923, when 33 babies received it in a single year.

Decade-level aggregation shows that Aretta performed strongest in the 1920s, accumulating 272 births during that ten-year window. Across the 10 decades of recorded activity, Aretta shows a clear decline from its mid-century high. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in West Virginia, which accounts for 87 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by Kentucky and North Carolina. In total, SSA state-level files list Aretta in 4 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for Aretta in our reference dataset. These figures derive from SSA's annual national and state-level name files, which include any name appearing at least five times in a given year or state-year; names below that threshold are suppressed for privacy and therefore excluded from the totals shown here. The 1,142 total represents a lower bound — actual usage may be higher in years or states where the count fell below the disclosure floor. This page is provided for informational and research purposes only and does not constitute personal, legal, or naming advice.