Rhett is an American surname first name, most likely a form of the Dutch surname de Raedt, which means "advice" or "counsel". Almost everyone hears it as the name of Rhett Butler, the dashing hero of Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind, and the Southern flavor has stuck. Rhett sat at number 676 in the United States in 2000, rose sharply through the 2010s to a peak of number 149 in 2021 and ranks number 188 in 2025.