Althea
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Any of several plants of the genus Althaea; the hollyhocks and mallows, native to Eurasia
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/æɫθiə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Althea is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. In Guyana it is the 27th most common given name.
- GYGuyana1 in 1.7K(measured from records)
- JMJamaica≈1 in 3.5K
- PHPhilippines≈1 in 18K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- Sources
- 369 (measured from records)
- 1 in 1.7K (inferred from the name graph)
10,948 people, 2020
Highest-authority source
Guyana
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Any of several plants of the genus Althaea; the hollyhocks and mallows, native to Eurasia.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Althea counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | — | 10,948 | 1 in 30K | 11K | Althea | 369 |
| PH Philippines | — | ≈6,200 est. | ≈1 in 18K | 44K | Althea | 99 |
| ZA South Africa | — | ≈2,900 est. | ≈1 in 20K | — | Althea | 44 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈2,600 est. | ≈1 in 25K | listed | Althea | 114 |
| IT Italy | — | ≈1,600 est. | ≈1 in 38K | 27 | Althea | 28 |
| JM Jamaica | #83 | ≈800 est. | ≈1 in 3.5K | — | Althea | 20 |
| SE Sweden | — | 459 | 1 in 22K | 459 | Althea | 15 |
| GY Guyana | #27 | 433 | 1 in 1.7K | 433 | Althea | 8 |
10,948 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Top 500 First Names in the Philippines (PSA FOI response, tracking; the gb-nisra-baby-names-ni register; Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025; ISTAT — Contanomi newborn per-name series (1999–2024, JSONP backend); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Althea is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In German, weibl. Vom. griechischen Ursprungs (griech. Althaia), in der griechischen Mytho logie Name der Gemahlin des Königs Oineus von Kalydon, die durch das tragische Schick sal ihres Sohnes Meleager bekannt wurde.
as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Althea Gylesb. 1868GBGyles, Margaret Alethea [known as Althea Gyles] (1868–1949), artist and poet
- Althea Henleyb. 1911USAmerican film actress (1911-1996)
- Louise Broughb. 1923USnot in their usual nameAmerican tennis player (1923–2014)
- Althea Gibsonb. 1927USAmerican tennis player (1927-2003)
- Lila Fenwickb. 1932USnot in their usual nameAmerican lawyer and human rights official (1932-2020)
- Althea Currierb. 1941USAmerican actress and model
- Kim Gordonb. 1953USnot in their usual nameAmerican musician and artist, most known as co-founding member of Sonic Youth (born 1953)
- Althea Flyntb. 1953USMagazine publisher (1953–1987)
- Marcella Liburdb. 1953KNnot in their usual nameKittitian politician
- Althea Reinhardtb. 1996DKDanish handball player
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 55 sources across 31 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 11K | #2,327 |
| PH Philippines | PSA — Most Common Baby Names (2017–present) | 2023 | 1.1K | #1 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 459 | #2,941 |
| GY Guyana | Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025 | 2025 | 433 | #226 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 171 | — |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2020 | 154 | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 29 | #2,327 |
| IT Italy | ISTAT — Contanomi newborn per-name series (1999–2024, JSONP backend) | 2024 | 27 | #472 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1924 | 5 | — |
| GB United Kingdom | NISRA — Baby names Northern Ireland full list (1997–present) | 2024 | — | — |
| GB United Kingdom | A Concise Dictionary of First Names (Hanks & Hodges, 2001) | — | — | — |
| IT Italy | Il Grande Libro dei Nomi per Bebè (2020) | — | — | — |
Reference works 2
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Althea mean, and where does it come from?
- Any of several plants of the genus Althaea; the hollyhocks and mallows, native to Eurasia. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- Is Althea a male or female name?
- Althea is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- How do you pronounce Althea?
- A machine transcription gives /æɫθiə/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Althea have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 11 thousand people named Althea, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled althea.
- Where is Althea most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Althea is densest in Guyana — about 1 in 1.7 thousand people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Althea?
- In the United States, the national register counted 10,948 people named Althea in 2020, about 1 in 30 thousand residents.
- How common is Althea compared with other names?
- In Guyana, Althea is the 27th most common given name of 15,440 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Althea?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/altheaThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Althea” — the 27th most common given name in Guyana. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.