Collette is a variant of Colette, the French short form of Nicolette, which goes back to Nicholas and means "victory of the people". The French novelist Colette, author of Gigi, gave the name literary fame, and Saint Colette of Corbie, a 15th-century reformer of the Poor Clares, gave it a religious one. In the United States Collette has always been rare: it ranked number 2744 in 2000, reached number 2130 in 2014 and stood at number 2243 in 2025.