Loretta
Meaning
variant of Laura, laurel, or linked to the Marian shrine of Loreto; immortalized by Loretta Castorini in Moonstruck (1987)
The story
Loretta is Italian, usually explained as a flowering of Laura, the laurel, though some tie it instead to Loreto, the Marian shrine on Italy's Adriatic coast. It was a thoroughly American favorite through the first half of the twentieth century, holding strong from the 1900s into the 1950s before beginning a long, gentle descent. Country music gave the name one legend in Loretta Lynn, and the movies gave it a valentine in 1987: Loretta Castorini, the widowed Brooklyn bookkeeper of Moonstruck who falls helplessly for her fiancé's younger brother, the role that won Cher an Academy Award and made the name synonymous with late-blooming romance. After decades of quiet, the chart shows Loretta ticking upward again in the 2020s, right on schedule for the vintage revival, an old sweetheart of a name getting a second look.
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Loretta peaked in the 1900s and the 1950s in nearly equal measure.
See popularity in Brazil
Popularity in Brazil
155 people · the #30,402 first name in Brazil · about 1 in 1,000,000 · median age 34
Among people named Loretta living in Brazil at the 2022 census, more were born in the 1980s than in any other decade.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
When you meet Loretta
Most people given the name Loretta in the United States were born between 1940 and 1979. The Loretta you meet today is most often in her 60s or 70s.
Estimated from US Social Security birth registrations and typical lifespans; a rough guide, not a rule.
The Loretta deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Loretta 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 Loretta fits with your family’s names and surname.
Keep exploring
Does Loretta fit YOUR family?
nametree reads your family’s names and finds the ones that belong. Free, private, no ads.
Add Loretta to your family’s tree →