Lucretia
A feminine name of Latin origin meaning "prosperous" or "giver of wealth".
Name Census estimates that about 5,598 living Americans carry the first name Lucretia. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Lucretia today is around 58 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Lucretia births was 1974 (190 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Lucretia. 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.
People living today
5.6K
~ 1 in 61,228 Americans
Peak year
1974
190 babies that year
Average age
58
years old
2018 SSA rank
#13,272
Tracked since 1880
Popularity
Lucretia: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Lucretia from the 1880s through to the 2010s, spanning 14 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1970s, with 1,568 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1970s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Lucretia 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 Lucretia during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Lucretias live
The SSA's state-level files cover 31 states and territories. New York, Texas, Pennsylvania recorded the most babies named Lucretia, while Massachusetts, District of Columbia, Connecticut recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 164 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Lucretia
Lucretia is a feminine given name of Latin origin, derived from the Roman family name Lucretius. It is believed to have originated from the Latin word "lucrum," meaning "profit" or "wealth." The name gained prominence in ancient Rome during the Republican era, around the 5th century BC.
The earliest known historical figure bearing the name Lucretia was the legendary Roman matron Lucretia, whose tragic story is recounted by the Roman historian Livy. According to legend, Lucretia was a virtuous and beautiful woman who was raped by Sextus Tarquinius, the son of the tyrannical king Lucius Tarquinius Superbus. Overwhelmed by shame, Lucretia took her own life, an act that ultimately led to the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of the Roman Republic. Her sacrifice became a symbol of honor and virtue in Roman culture.
Throughout ancient Roman history, the name Lucretia was associated with nobility and virtue. Several notable Roman women bore this name, including Lucretia Mela, the granddaughter of the Roman general Pompeius Magnus, and Lucretia Borgia (1480-1519), the infamous daughter of Pope Alexander VI, who was known for her involvement in political intrigues and alleged crimes.
During the Renaissance period, the name Lucretia gained popularity among the European aristocracy, partly due to the influence of classical literature and the admiration for Roman culture. One famous bearer of the name was Lucrezia de' Medici (1545-1561), a member of the powerful Medici family in Florence, who was renowned for her beauty and intellect.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, the name Lucretia appeared in various literary works, including the tragedy "The Rape of Lucrece" by William Shakespeare (1594) and the novel "Clarissa" by Samuel Richardson (1748), where the character Clarissa Harlowe was nicknamed Lucretia.
Other notable historical figures named Lucretia include Lucretia Coffin Mott (1793-1900), an American Quaker minister and abolitionist who played a pivotal role in the women's rights movement, and Lucretia Rudolph Garfield (1832-1918), the wife of U.S. President James A. Garfield.
People
Lucretia + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Lucretia as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with L
Other first names starting with L with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Lucretia: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Lucretia?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 5,598 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Lucretia 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 61,228 US residents.
Is Lucretia a common name?
We classify Lucretia as "Rare". It ranks above 96.8% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 10,422 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Lucretia most popular?
The single biggest year for Lucretia was 1974, when 190 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Lucretia is about 58 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
Is Lucretia a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Lucretia 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.