← Back to The Viking and Anglo-Saxon Age
Girl · Italian, from Greek
Rita
Say it: REE-tah
Meaning
A short form of Margherita.
Certainscholars agree on this meaning.
Its wave through time
Fading since the 1930s
In the United States
- 284,382 babies given this name since 1880
- At its height in 1930, about 1 in 206 girls
- 185 babies in 2020
Through the ages
Used by
Famous bearers
- St Rita of Cascia
Names worth a look
Where this comes from
- Calendars of saints and name days
- Parish baptism registers
- United States Social Security birth records, 1880 to today source
Meanings and histories are compiled from the study of names and their languages and checked by a second review.
Meanings and histories are drawn from the study of names and their languages, each with a confidence rating; popularity figures come from official birth records. Name histories are a living field: if you know of a correction, we would be glad to hear it.