Theresa

278,873 people in America carry this name — ranked #192 of 923.

A name of the post-war decades.

Say it tur EE suh

3 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

T ER0 IY1 S AH0 — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 278,873 2020 Census
  • Per 100,000 92.3 about 1 in 1,189 people
  • As a surname No not above the reporting threshold

What Theresa means and where it comes from

Greek in origin, reading literally as “carrying ears of corn”.

Origins are a matter of scholarly argument rather than record, and a name can be traced more than one way. We state one reading and say where it came from.

Theresa name popularity by year

405,114 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 1961, with 11,996 of them.

80 90 00 10 20 30 40 50 60s 70 80 90 00 10 20

Most people carrying it were born in the 1960s. It has been given less often of late.

Counted from Social Security card applications, so it covers births registered in the United States and leaves out names given to fewer than five babies in a year.

Middle names for Theresa

Three syllables already, so a short middle name keeps the whole from running long.

Better avoided

  • Theresa Lisa — rhymes
  • Theresa Ashley — runs together
  • Theresa Amy — runs together

Chosen by sound from the pronouncing dictionary, then ordered by how often the name is given. None of it is a rule — the ear decides.

Going quiet

Theresa has more than halved in three decades. The people carrying it belong mostly to the Baby Boomers.

Is Theresa used for boys or for girls?

0.1% men
278,643 women

As recorded on census returns, not as anyone thinks the name ought to be used.

The same name abroad

  • Zon French
  • Tracy English
  • Terza Ill
  • Res’l Bav
  • Teresa It.|Span
  • Therèse French
  • Terezie Bohemian
  • Terezia Ill
  • Terezyga Polish
  • Teresita It.|Span
  • Teresina Polish

Forms of one name traced to the same root. Spellings are as the glossary printed them, so some look older than the versions in use today.

The likeliest full names

The census counts first names and surnames separately and never together, so these are estimates: how often the two halves would meet if they paired at random. They do not — names cluster by community — so read them as an order of magnitude, not a headcount.

Same syllables and stress as Theresa

Ends on the same sound

Same rhythm — 3 syllables, stress on the second

Matched on phonemes, not spelling, so the lists follow the ear rather than the page.

Spellings of Theresa

Theresa is how 62% of them spell it — 448,365 people answer to the sound.

Each spelling is its own census entry — the counts never overlap, so the shares are of the group, not of the country.

Names about as common

The nearest entries above and below by number of people.

The states where Theresa is most common

In the District of Columbia the name is given 2.0 times as often as it is across the country.

  • the District of Columbia ×2.0
  • New Jersey ×1.6
  • New York ×1.6
  • Delaware ×1.6
  • New Mexico ×1.6

Measured against the state's own share of births since 1960, so a small state can lead a big one. Counted from Social Security card applications.

Try it Adult Height

Open Adult Height on its own page

Where this page gets its numbers

  • Counts, ranks and shares: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census tabulations of first and last names occurring 100 or more times. Percentages, bands and groupings are our own arithmetic — the conclusions are ours, not the Bureau’s.
  • Pronunciation, syllables and rhyme groups: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, Carnegie Mellon University. The plain-English respelling is ours.
  • Origins and the forms a name takes in other languages: Charlotte Yonge, History of Christian Names, 1884 — a public-domain work. Scholarship has moved on since, so read it as one reading of a name, not the last word.

Below a hundred people we publish no figure at all — the same threshold the Census Bureau applies to us. What each source covers
Other names of Greek origin