Aletta
A diminutive form of the feminine German name Adelheid, which means "noble type".
Name Census estimates that about 655 living Americans carry the first name Aletta. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Aletta today is around 39 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Aletta births was 1935 (37 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Aletta. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Aletta with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
655
~ 1 in 523,289 Americans
Peak year
1935
37 babies that year
Average age
39
years old
2024 SSA rank
#4,111
Tracked since 1892
Census
Aletta in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 738 people with the first name Aletta, which placed it at #15,552 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#15,552
National first-name rank
People counted
738
738 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.2
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
69.8% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Aletta
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Aletta is White at 69.8%. The next largest groups are Black (12.3%) and Two or More Races (10.4%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Aletta described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Aletta at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White69.8% · 515
- Black or African American12.3% · 91
- Two or more races10.4% · 77
- Hispanic or Latino4.1% · 30
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.3% · 17
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.1% · 8
Popularity
Aletta: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Aletta from the 1890s through to the 2020s, spanning 14 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 142 total registrations. The name continues to be given at rates close to its all-time high, suggesting it has not yet fallen out of fashion.
Babies born per year
Decades
Aletta by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Aletta during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Alettas live
The SSA's state-level files cover 4 states and territories. Missouri, Texas, Arkansas recorded the most babies named Aletta, while Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 9 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Aletta
The name Aletta has its origins in the Germanic languages and is a diminutive form of the female name Adelaide or Adelheid. It is believed to have derived from the Old German words "adal" meaning "noble" and "heid" meaning "kind" or "sort." The name was popular in the Netherlands and parts of Germany during the Middle Ages.
One of the earliest recorded mentions of the name Aletta can be found in the 13th century Dutch chronicle "Gesta Abbatem Trudonensium," where an Aletta van Valkenburg is mentioned as a noblewoman. In the 14th century, an Aletta van Amstel was a prominent figure in the city of Amsterdam, known for her charitable works and patronage of the arts.
During the Renaissance period, there was an Aletta Jacobs (1854-1929), a Dutch physician and feminist who played a crucial role in the women's suffrage movement in the Netherlands. She was the first woman to attend a Dutch university and the first female physician in the country.
Another notable figure with the name Aletta was Aletta Biersing (1859-1939), a Dutch painter known for her impressionistic landscapes and still life paintings. She was part of the Amsterdam Impressionist movement and her works are displayed in several museums in the Netherlands.
In the 20th century, there was Aletta Jacobs (1915-1997), a Dutch resistance fighter during World War II. She was part of the underground resistance movement and helped hide Jewish families from the Nazis, risking her life in the process.
Aletta Boer (1927-2020) was a Dutch astronomer who made significant contributions to the study of variable stars and stellar evolution. She was the first woman to become a full professor of astronomy at a Dutch university.
While the name Aletta has its roots in the Germanic languages, it has been used across various cultures and regions over the centuries, with each person bearing the name leaving their unique mark on history.
People
Aletta + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Aletta as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with A
Other first names starting with A with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Aletta: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Aletta?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 655 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Aletta going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 523,289 US residents.
Is Aletta a common name?
We classify Aletta as "Very Rare". It ranks above 87% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 1,089 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Aletta most popular?
The single biggest year for Aletta was 1935, when 37 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Aletta is about 39 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Aletta in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 738 people with the name Aletta, or 0.24 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #15,552 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Aletta in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Aletta?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Aletta appears almost entirely female. Of the 733 people counted with this name, 100.0% were female and only a very small share were male. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Aletta?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Aletta is White at 69.8%. The next largest groups are Black (12.3%) and Two or More Races (10.4%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Aletta most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Aletta in the 2020 Census, accounting for 69.8% (515 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Aletta in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Aletta a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Aletta in the SSA data are female. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Aletta still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Aletta in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Aletta can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people are called Aletta?
You can see how many people have the name Aletta on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org — same data roots, lighter UI.