Retha
given name · Latin script
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ɹɪθə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Retha is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- ZASouth Africa≈1 in 19K(inferred from the name graph)
- CACanada≈1 in 68K
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 72K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Retha itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- 3 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 243 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 16K (inferred from the name graph)
4,287 named Reta, 2020
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Ghana, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin
No verified etymology recorded for this name yet — the entries below are drawn from usage statistics and the name graph.
Sources 1
Attested across 14 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Retha 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 | — | 4,287as Reta | 1 in 78K | 4.3K | Retha | 243 |
| ZA South Africa | — | ≈3,000 est. | ≈1 in 19K | — | Retha | 51 |
| GH Ghana | #515 | ≈1,800 est. | ≈1 in 16K | — | Retha | 3 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈910 est. | ≈1 in 72K | 17 | Retha | 46 |
| IT Italy | — | ≈780 est. | ≈1 in 80K | listed | Retha | 2 |
| CA Canada | — | ≈550 est. | ≈1 in 68K | — | Retha | 22 |
| SG Singapore | — | ≈180 est. | ≈1 in 35K | — | Retha | 4 |
| IE Ireland | — | ≈120 est. | ≈1 in 43K | — | Retha | 3 |
4,287 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020, counting the spelling reta. 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; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register). 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)
Retha 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 odt, address, discourse, speech
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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)
- Retha Elizabeth Contri Sharpb. 1921USearly victim of the COVID-19 pandemic (1921-2020)
- Retha Warnickeb. 1939USAmerican historian
- Retha Heymannb. 2000ZASouth African mathematician
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 10 sources across 6 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 4.1K | #4,499 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1924 | 252 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1918 | 218 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1922 | 215 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1921 | 214 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1933 | 213 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1919 | 213 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1927 | 210 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1925 | 209 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1934 | 206 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1923 | 205 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1926 | 201 | — |
Reference works 1
- 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
- How do you pronounce Retha?
- A machine transcription gives /ɹɪθə/ (IPA) for English.
- Is Retha a male or female name?
- Retha 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.
- What are other forms of the name Retha?
- In the etymology graph, Rita, Margarita and Peggy are forms of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Retha have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 4.3 thousand people named Reta, more than in any other country we hold.
- How common is the name Retha?
- In the United States, the national register counted 4,287 people named Reta in 2020, about 1 in 78 thousand residents.
- How common is Retha compared with other names?
- In Ghana, Retha is the 515th most common given name of 14,081 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Retha?
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/rethaThe 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, “Retha” — the 515th most common given name in Ghana. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.