How popular is the baby name Althea in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Use the popularity graph and data table below to find out! Plus, see all the blog posts that mention the name Althea.

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Popularity of the baby name Althea


Posts that mention the name Althea

Baby name needed: Girl name for Emma & Ethan’s sister

A reader named Andi has two children, Emma and Ethan. She’s now expecting her third, a girl, and she’d like some name suggestions. Here are the details:

  • She does not want another E-name.
  • She’d like something that isn’t very trendy.
  • The baby’s surname will start with an r and have two syllables. (Think Rogers.)

Andi likes the names Adeline (nn Addie), Ava, Chloe, Ellie, Grace, Isabelle, Lauren, Lily, Madeline (nn Maddie) and Victoria. Her husband doesn’t care for any of these names, though.

She also mentions that the names Olivia, Catherine and Julia are off the table.

This is a curious case. Andi would like to avoid trendy names, yet many of the names she likes are very trendy right now. Ava and Chloe are in the top 10. Grace and Lily are in the top 20. Isabelle is similar to #1 name Isabella. Ellie is similar to #14 Ella. Addie and Maddie are also nicknames for #12 Addison and #7 Madison.

So the challenge will be finding a name to go with Emma and Ethan that sounds trendy, but isn’t. Here are some ideas:

Adele
Alice
Althea
Anne
Calla
Camille
Celeste
Celia
Claribel		Diane
Delia
Flora
Helen
Jane
Johanna
Josephine
Josie
Larissa		Lucia
Lydia
Mabel
Marie
Marina
Marla
Naomi
Nelle
Nicole		Opal
Ramona
Risa
Sabina
Sylvia
Talia
Thea
Theresa
Willa

Which of these do you like best with Emma and Ethan? What other names would you suggest to Andi?

Baby name needed: Girl name for Cecily’s sister

A reader named Baccara has a daughter named Cecily. She’s expecting a second baby girl in May, and she’d like some name suggestions. She writes:

To give you an idea of our style, we like feminine names. We also tend to gravitate towards more unusual names, or at least ones that are not trendy.

Here are three names she and her husband are considering:

  • “Charlotte has always been a contender (during both pregnancies), although its popularity is now becoming somewhat of a deterrent.”
  • Camilla. “However, after reading your December post on sibling names, I am concerned that both names are too overtly similar (first initial, number of syllables) to work well together.”
  • Adele, though Baccara’s “husband is concerned with it having a religious affiliation (Hebrew).”

Their surname is a one-syllable N-name, so short names and names that end with n are out.

First, a couple of thoughts:

Cecily and Camilla do have the same first letter and number of syllables. But they don’t start with the same sound, and they don’t have the same rhythm. So I agree that they’re similar, but I don’t know if they’re too close. I think they might work pretty well together, in fact.

I also like Adele with Cecily. The name isn’t Hebrew in origin, though. It’s based on the Germanic word adal, meaning noble. (The first half of Adelaide comes from the same place.) I’m not aware of the name Adele being strongly associated with religion. (Am I overlooking something?)

Here are some other names that I think sound good with Cecily:

Allegra
Althea
Anastasia
Augusta
Aurora
Bianca
Dorothy
Eloisa		Fabiana
Felicia/Felice
Flora
Francesca
Gemma
Geneva
Genevieve
Isidora		Junia
Leona/Leonora
Lydia
Marcella
Margot
Minerva
Miranda
Miriam		Muriel
Phoebe
Portia
Rosemary
Therese
Valencia
Wilhelmina
Yvette

(I omitted Amelia, Evelyn, Vanessa and Victoria because I thought they might be too trendy/popular for Baccara’s taste.)

Which of the names above do you like best with Cecily? What other name suggestions would you offer to Baccara?

Update – Scroll down to find out what the baby was named!

Baby name needed: Traditional name for baby girl

A reader named Liz is expecting a baby girl and she’d like some help coming up with a name. Here are some details:

  • Liz likes “traditional names that are not the type of name the person wearing it will be teased for,” such as Amalia, Charlotte, Sofia and Louisa/Louise.
  • Liz’s husband like “names that sound cute for a little kid but good for an adult,” such as Grace, Beatrice and Nathalie. (Liz doesn’t care for Beatrice/Beatrix, though.)

So far, Louise/Louisa is the only name both Liz and her husband can agree on.

Here are some other names that I thought might work:

Adele
Alice
Althea
Caroline
Celia
Claire
Clarice
Coralie
Emmeline		Genevieve
Felice
Gillian
Greta
Helena
Irene
Isabelle
Johanna
Josephine		Lavinia
Leona
Lucy
Lydia
Madeleine
Margaret
Mary
Naomi
Nicole		Pauline
Patrice
Philippa
Rosalie
Sabina
Susannah
Sylvia
Thea
Theresa

No name is immune to teasing, but I did bump Harriet, which is dangerously close to “hairy.”

What other names would you suggest to Liz?

Baby names for sports lovers (Namestorm #6)

I know, I know — sports is a huge topic. So huge that one could come up with dozens of names for just about any sport that’s ever existed.

But I thought taking a general approach would be more fun than focusing on a specific sport, so here are notable names culled from a range of sports:

James

  • Canadian-born sports coach James Naismith invented basketball in Springfield, Massachusetts in late 1891.
  • American athlete James “Jesse” Owens won four gold medals at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin.
  • American athlete James “Jim” Thorpe was named the greatest athlete of the first half of the 20th century by the Associated Press in 1950.
  • American football player James “Jim” Brown was named the greatest professional football player ever by The Sporting News in 2002.

Mildred and Charlotte
American athlete Mildred “Babe” Didrikson and English athlete Charlotte “Lottie” Dod were named the most versatile female athletes of all time by The Guinness Book of Records.

George
American baseball player George “Babe” Ruth is widely regarded as the greatest baseball player of all time.

Gertrude
American swimmer Gertrude Ederle was the first woman to swim across the English Channel, in 1926.

Roger
English athlete Roger Bannister was the first man to run a mile in fewer than four minutes, in 1954.

Althea
American tennis player Althea Gibson was the first African-American woman to win a Grand Slam title, in 1956.

Edison
Brazilian soccer player Edison Arantes do Nascimento, also known as Pelé, is widely regarded as the best soccer player of all time.

Jack

  • American baseball player Jack “Jackie” Robinson was the first African-American to play Major League Baseball, in 1947. He was also the first African American inducted into Baseball Hall of Fame, in 1962.
  • American golfer Jack Nicklaus is regarded by some as the greatest professional golfer of all time.

Sanford
American baseball player Sanford “Sandy” Koufax is the youngest person to have been inducted into Baseball Hall of Fame, in 1972.

Muhammad
American boxer Muhammad Ali (born Cassius Clay) was a three-time World Heavyweight Champion.

Bonnie
American speedskater Bonnie Blair is one of the most decorated athletes in Olympic history.

Wayne
Canadian hockey player Wayne Gretzky is regarded by some as the greatest professional hockey player of all time.

Michael
American basketball player Michael Jordan is widely regarded as the best basketball player of all time.

And now, two questions:

  • What other sports-inspired names can you come up with?
  • What other interests or activities should we namestorm about next?

Sources: Smithsonian Institution, Top North American Athletes of the Century