Anitha
Meaning "priceless", an Indian feminine name derived from Sanskrit.
Name Census estimates that about 107 living Americans carry the first name Anitha. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Anitha today is around 51 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Anitha births was 1959 (8 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Anitha. 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 Anitha with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
107
~ 1 in 3,203,312 Americans
Peak year
1959
8 babies that year
Average age
51
years old
1993 SSA rank
#13,574
Tracked since 1954
Census
Anitha in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 2,357 people with the first name Anitha, which placed it at #6,715 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
#6,715
National first-name rank
People counted
2.4K
2,357 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.8
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Asian and Pacific Islander
91.9% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Anitha
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Anitha is Asian/Pacific Islander at 91.9%. The next largest groups are Black (5.1%) and White (1.7%). 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 Anitha 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 Anitha at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Asian and Pacific Islander91.9% · 2,165
- Black or African American5.1% · 120
- White1.7% · 39
- Two or more races0.6% · 15
- Hispanic or Latino0.5% · 11
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.3% · 7
Popularity
Anitha: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Anitha from the 1950s through to the 1990s, spanning 5 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1970s, with 31 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 1970s peak, Anitha remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Anitha 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 Anitha during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Origin
Meaning and history of Anitha
The name Anitha has its origins in Sanskrit, an ancient Indo-Aryan language that served as the root for many modern Indian languages. It is derived from the Sanskrit word "anit," which means "unbound" or "limitless." The name gained popularity in various parts of the Indian subcontinent, particularly in the southern states.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Anitha can be found in the ancient Hindu scripture, the Mahabharata. In this epic, Anitha is mentioned as the name of a female warrior who fought valiantly alongside the Pandava princes. This reference suggests that the name was in use during the time when the Mahabharata was composed, which is believed to be between the 8th and 4th centuries BCE.
Throughout history, several notable individuals have borne the name Anitha. One of the earliest known figures was Anitha Devi, a 10th-century Indian mathematician and astronomer from the state of Karnataka. She made significant contributions to the field of mathematics and wrote several treatises on the subject.
In the 16th century, Anitha Bai, a powerful queen from the Vijayanagar Empire, ruled over parts of present-day Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. She was known for her strategic military prowess and her patronage of the arts and literature.
Another famous Anitha was Anitha Desai, an Indian novelist and professor who was born in 1937 and passed away in 2011. She was a recipient of the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize multiple times for her literary works.
In the realm of Indian classical dance, Anitha Ratnam, born in 1965, is a renowned Bharatanatyam dancer and choreographer. She has performed extensively both in India and internationally, and has received numerous accolades for her contributions to the art form.
Anitha Radhakrishnan, born in 1959, is a prominent Indian film director and screenwriter. She has directed several critically acclaimed and commercially successful films in multiple languages, including Tamil, Malayalam, and Hindi.
People
Anitha + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Anitha 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
Anitha: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Anitha?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 107 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Anitha 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 3,203,312 US residents.
Is Anitha a common name?
We classify Anitha as "Very Rare". It ranks above 65.5% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 123 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Anitha most popular?
The single biggest year for Anitha was 1959, when 8 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Anitha is about 51 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Anitha in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 2,357 people with the name Anitha, or 0.78 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #6,715 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 Anitha 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 Anitha?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Anitha appears almost entirely female. Of the 2,352 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 Anitha?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Anitha is Asian/Pacific Islander at 91.9%. The next largest groups are Black (5.1%) and White (1.7%). 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 Anitha most often in the Census?
Asian/Pacific Islander is the largest reported group for people named Anitha in the 2020 Census, accounting for 91.9% (2,165 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 Anitha in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Anitha a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Anitha 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 Anitha still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Anitha 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 Anitha 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 common is the name Anitha?
See how many people have the name Anitha on HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site built around that single question.