Message: "Origin of the name of Reatha"

[Facts] Origin of the name of Reatha

by Reatha (guest)

6/10/2011, 9:46 PM

I was named Reatha after my grandmother who was 1/2 Cherokee Indian, she was born in 1900. Her mother was Cherokee and gave my grandmother the name of Reatha. Unfortunately, my grandmother never asked what her name meant. Does anyone out there of Cherokee heritage have any information on the name of Reatha?

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- Orsino (bananarama)

6/11/2011, 1:12 PM

I'm not Cherokee, but I think that Reatha's probably an English name. Most likely, it's a variant of Retha. A lot of Native Americans in the US (Cherokee included) have been using English names for quite some time now.

- Amphelise (Chrisell) +1

6/11/2011, 12:48 AM

It's not necessarily of Cherokee origin even though the namer was Cherokee. My first thought was that it could be a variation of Aretha.

- ClaudiaS

6/11/2011, 10:29 AM

A derivation from Aretha was my first thought too, but after checking the SSA data I'm not so sure. The name Reatha was on the U.S. top 1000 list off and on between 1900 and 1927. Retha was even more common, appearing consistently from 1893 to 1962, but Aretha did not show up at all until 1962.

My guess is that Retha/Reatha was a variant of Rita, which was popular starting in the late 1800s. It seems quite unlikely that it was derived from a Cherokee or other Native American name. If nothing else, the Cherokee language does not have the sound we spell with "TH."

This message was edited 6/11/2011, 10:30 AM

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