Grete
Torn between Grete and another name? Compare them side by side →
Meaning
a Norwegian, Danish and German short form of Margaret, from Greek margarites, "pearl"
How popular is Grete around the world?
In the United States, Grete is not on the Social Security record for 2020 to 2025: names under 5 in a year are withheld at source. In Spain, 30 residents are named Grete, ranked 21,940th among women, with a mean age of 59.7 years.
Grete is on the official records of Spain.
United States
under 5 a year
In the United States, Grete is not on the Social Security record for 2020 to 2025: names under 5 in a year are withheld at source.
Grete appears in US Social Security baby-name records only in small numbers: never enough in any decade to draw a popularity curve.
Births with a Social Security record. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration
Spain
1 in 1.5M
In Spain, 30 residents are named Grete, ranked 21,940th among women, with a mean age of 59.7 years.
Residents of Spain on 1 January 2025. Spain publishes how old a name’s living bearers are, not a birth series, so there is no year chart. Source: INE (Spain), Censo de Población anual, 1 January 2025
Austria
last on record 2018
Grete is not on the 2025 record for Austria, which publishes every first name down to a single birth, so the name was not given there that year.
The count never rose above 3 in a year, too few to chart.
Live births in Austria by year of birth, 1984–2025, from Statistik Austria’s first-name statistics; spellings that differ only by special characters are counted together (umlauts stay apart), every name down to a single birth is published, and the count covers babies with Austrian citizenship only until 2009, every baby from 2010, and from 2015 also births abroad to mothers living in Austria. Shares divide by Statistik Austria’s count of live births from 2010, and before that by the file’s own total for the year. Source: Statistik Austria - data.statistik.gv.at (OGDEXT_VORNAMEN_1, updated 2026-07-09)
Montevideo City
last on record 1965
Grete is not on the 2011 record for Montevideo, whose registry withholds nothing, so the spelling was not given there that year.
The count never rose above 1 in a year, too few to chart.
Births in the department of Montevideo (not all of Uruguay) by first name and year of birth, 1940–2011, from the city’s civil registry, which writes names in capitals, almost always without accents; counted as spelling groups (accent and punctuation variants merged), nothing is withheld at source, and 2012 is excluded as a partial year. Source: Servicio de Registro Civil, Intendencia de Montevideo, Partidas de Registro Civil de Montevideo (Licencia de Datos Abiertos - Uruguay); 2012 dropped as partial
Norway
last on record 2022
Grete is not on the 2025 record for Norway, where names carried by fewer than 4 people in a year are withheld at source.
share of the girls on the register for that year, SSB’s own figure
People who have or have had a Norwegian ID number, emigrants left out, from Statistics Norway’s name statistics (release of January 2026): by year of birth for 1945–2020 (everyone born that year who was ever registered in Norway, including people who registered later and people who have since died) and by year of naming from 2021; only first names carried by 200 or more living people are listed, counts under 4 are withheld, and SSB merges spellings that differ only by letters outside the Norwegian alphabet. The shares are SSB’s own, of the people of that sex and year in that count; the 2025 figure counts the children named that year, and no year is a count of births. Source: Statistics Norway (SSB), table 10467 (updated 2026-01-28)
Not on the record in Mexico City, Argentina, Puerto Rico, England and Wales, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, Scotland and Poland: those registries withhold small counts, so rare uses may sit below their floors.
Not on the Chile record: nametree keeps spellings that reached 5 registrations in some year, so rarer uses are not shown. Not on the France record: nametree keeps spellings that reached 20 births in some year, so rarer uses are not shown. Not on the South Australia record for 1944 to 2017: that registry withholds nothing, so this spelling was not given there in those years.
The Grete deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Grete truly comes from, how it traveled, and what a century of records reveals. If you have grown a tree on nametree, it also considers how Grete fits with your family’s names and surname.
Does Grete fit YOUR family?
nametree reads your family’s names and finds the ones that belong. Free, private, no ads.
Add Grete to your family’s tree →