← Back to The Name Registry
Girl

Rita

The name Rita carries the meaning "Pearl", with roots in Sanskrit/Spanish. It had its heyday in the 1950s and has mostly fallen out of use since. Today, it is a well-known pick in the registry. It has quietly persisted through most of the last century of American birth records.

Sanskrit/SpanishPearl
Sanskrit/SpanishDiminutive of Margarita
Births by decade
1900s
1,992
1910s
23,882
1920s
50,723
1930s
38,916
1940s
49,991
1950s
60,381
1960s
32,972
1970s
10,590
1980s
6,161
1990s
3,217
2000s
2,166
2010s
1,470
Peaked in the 1950s · 282,461 total U.S. births since 1900