Entry № 8744 · Italian origin

Rita Rita — Meaning, Origin & Baby Name Popularity

/ REE-tah /
Gender
Girl
Origin
Italian
Meaning
"Pearl (Saint Rita of Cascia; Rita Hayworth, Rita Moreno)"
Syllables
2
First recorded
Medieval (Italian)

A name that means "pearl (saint rita of cascia; rita hayworth, rita moreno)".

Rita is the Italian-Spanish short form of Margherita / Margarita — from the Greek margarites (pearl).

Pearl. Saint of the Impossible; Rita Moreno is one of only 19 EGOT winners ever.

The name in its native script.

Rita
Transliteration
Rita
Pronunciation
/ ˈriː.tə /
Root
Grammatical form

Where Rita stands.

Rita does not currently appear in the US Social Security Administration's top 1,000 girls' names, so we don't publish a US rank or birth count for it. That says nothing about the name's standing elsewhere in the world — only that it sits outside the ranked US data we rely on.

Ritas before her.

Real people
Saint Rita of Cascia
Italian Augustinian saint.
1381 – 1457
Rita Moreno
Puerto Rican EGOT actress.
born 1931
Rita Hayworth
American actress.
1918 – 1987
In fiction
Rita
Educating Rita.
1983

Names connected to Rita.

The number behind Rita.

3

The Communicator

In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Rita reduce to 3, The Communicator. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.