Harrietta
A feminine diminutive of the given name Harriet, which is a variant of the English name Harry meaning "estate ruler".
Name Census estimates that about 170 living Americans carry the first name Harrietta. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Harrietta today is around 73 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Harrietta births was 1950 (20 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Harrietta. 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.
Key insights
- • The typical person named Harrietta is about 73 years old today, placing it firmly among the names of earlier generations. Most living Harriettas were born before 1963.
People living today
170
~ 1 in 2,016,202 Americans
Peak year
1950
20 babies that year
Average age
73
years old
1982 SSA rank
#11,077
Tracked since 1901
Popularity
Harrietta: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Harrietta from the 1900s through to the 1980s, spanning 8 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1940s, with 115 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1940s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Harrietta 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 Harrietta 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 Harrietta
The name Harrietta is an English feminine given name derived from the Germanic name Harriet, which itself is a variant of the French name Henriette. Henriette traces its origins to the Germanic name Heimrich, composed of the elements heim meaning "home" and ric meaning "power, ruler." The name Heimrich ultimately gave rise to the English name Henry.
The earliest known bearer of the name Harrietta was Harrietta Mordaunt (1663-1720), an English noblewoman who served as a Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Anne. In the 18th century, the name gained popularity among English nobility and gentry, with notable bearers including Harrietta Howard, Countess of Suffolk (1689-1767), a close friend of King George II, and Harrietta Beauclerk (1766-1821), an English aristocrat and courtier.
Across the Atlantic, one of the earliest recorded instances of the name Harrietta in America was Harrietta Pinckney (1782-1809), daughter of Charles Pinckney, a prominent politician and founding father from South Carolina. Harrietta's niece, Harrietta Holbrook (1808-1859), was a noted educator who founded one of the first schools for women's higher education in the United States.
In the 19th century, the name Harrietta gained some popularity among African Americans, with notable bearers including Harrietta Duvall (1833-1907), an educator and activist who established schools for freedmen in Georgia after the American Civil War, and Harrietta Moore (1845-1907), a prominent community leader and founder of the first African American Baptist church in Denver, Colorado.
Another notable bearer of the name Harrietta was Harrietta Wilson (1786-1845), an English courtesan and mistress to several aristocrats and members of the British royal family. Her memoirs, published after her death, caused a scandal due to their explicit details of her affairs with high-ranking individuals.
While the name Harrietta has declined in popularity in recent decades, it remains a part of historical records and literary works, reflecting its enduring legacy as an English feminine name with roots in Germanic and French naming traditions.
People
Harrietta + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Harrietta as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with H
Other first names starting with H with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Harrietta: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Harrietta?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 170 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Harrietta 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 2,016,202 US residents.
Is Harrietta a common name?
We classify Harrietta as "Very Rare". It ranks above 72% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 497 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Harrietta most popular?
The single biggest year for Harrietta was 1950, when 20 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Harrietta is about 73 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
Is Harrietta a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Harrietta 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.
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.