Rhett

Meaning: Its source is rhetor, a Latin name meaning "Speaker."

Feminine Forms: Rhetta

Popularity: The name Rhett ranked 696th in popularity for males of all ages in a sample of 2000-2003 Social Security Administration statistics and 1112th in popularity for males of all ages in a sample of the 1990 US Census.

Though this name appears on the 1990 U.S. Census lists, it is used by only a small percentage of the general population.

Narrative: The meaning of this surname is not certain. Margaret Mitchell seems to have introduced its use as a personal name when she created the romantic anti-hero of her 1936 novel Gone With the Wind, the dashing blockade runner Rhett Butler.

The name's popularity received a further boost when Rhett was portrayed by screen idol Clark Gable in the spectacularly successful 1939 film.

The Literary World

Rhett Butler
Fictional character.
- Dashing blocade-runner who becomes Scarlett''s third husband in Margaret Mitchell''s Gone with the Wind (see list of Characters in Literature of the American South)