Lettie

Where Lettie comes from

Lettie hasn't made it into the dictionaries we draw on, and nobody well known enough for an encyclopedia has carried it yet — so for now its story is the one the SSA record tells. Names that spell a familiar sound a new way often live here for a while before anyone writes them down.

  • Vowel-ended
Along the way
  1. 1880
    First SSA year
    Already #195 among girls — 62 babies in the first year on record.
  2. 1881
    Peak, #181
    68 babies named Lettie — more than any year before or since.
  3. 1937
    Lettie Oosthoek born
    Dutch actress
  4. 1953
    Lettie Beckon Alston born
    composer
  5. 1963
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #2,094.
In the dictionary

No dictionary entry for this spelling — which is its own kind of rare.

Namesakes
  • Lettie Oosthoek · Dutch actress, 1937–2026
  • Lettie Beckon Alston · composer, 1953–2014
  • Lettie Cowman · writer and missionary, 1870–1960
  • Lettie A. Allen · Public servant, political activist, feminist, local politician, 1901–1980

Sources: the origin note and dictionary entry are quoted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); the namesakes come from Wikidata (CC0); the milestones are worked out from the SSA record.