Variant of Arlette, a Norman French name possibly meaning 'eagle,' borne by William the Conqueror's mother.
Arletta is a graceful diminutive of Arlette, a name with roots stretching back to the early medieval Germanic world. Arlette is thought to derive from the Old High German *Herleva* or *Herlive*, composed of elements meaning "army" (*her*) and "life" (*leva*) — a name that spoke to strength and vitality in an age when both were perpetually at risk. The name entered history most dramatically through Arlette of Falaise, the young Norman woman who became the mistress of Robert I, Duke of Normandy, and the mother of William the Conqueror.
Without Arlette, England as we know it does not exist — a remarkable lineage for a name to carry. The name traveled from Normandy into England and France, where it softened and elaborated into Arlette and its diminutive Arletta over subsequent centuries. In American usage, Arletta appeared most frequently in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, particularly in the South and Midwest, where elaborated feminine names ending in *-etta* — Loretta, Bernadetta, Rosetta — enjoyed broad popularity.
The *-etta* suffix was a reliable beauty mark, lending an Italian-inflected musicality to any name it touched. Today Arletta feels like a genuine discovery: it has the romantic weight of its Norman-French origins, the lilting femininity of its suffix, and the rarity that comes from a century of disuse. It shares the aesthetic territory of names like Loretta, Arlene, and Odette without belonging squarely to any of them. For families drawn to vintage names with real historical depth, Arletta offers both the story of a forgotten heroine and a sound that feels fresh precisely because it has been so long overlooked.