Tim

143,982 people in America carry this name — ranked #392 of 923.

A name of the post-war decades.

Say it TIHM

1 syllable · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

T IH1 M — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 143,982 2020 Census
  • Rank #392 Common
  • Per 100,000 47.7 about 1 in 2,302 people
  • As a surname 952 ranked #26,922 the other way round

What Tim means and where it comes from

Greek in origin, reading literally as “fear God”.

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.

Tim name popularity by year

83,378 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 1960, with 6,946 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.

What goes well after Tim

One syllable, so a longer middle name gives the whole a rhythm.

Better avoided

  • Tim Michael — runs together
  • Tim Thomas — same opening
  • Tim Matthew — 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.

Is Tim a boy's or a girl's name?

99.7% men
493 women

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

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.

The states where Tim is most common

In South Dakota the name is given 3.0 times as often as it is across the country.

  • South Dakota ×3.0
  • Iowa ×2.8
  • Montana ×2.5
  • North Dakota ×2.3
  • Nebraska ×2.2

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.

Same syllables and stress as Tim

Ends on the same sound

Same rhythm — 1 syllables, stress on the first

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

The same name elsewhere

  • Tots Lett
  • Timotij Polish
  • Timoteo Italian
  • Timofei Russian
  • Timothée French
  • Timothea English
  • Timoscha Russian
  • Tymolensz Slav
  • Timotheos

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.

Who carries it today

  • White alone (non-Hispanic) — 86.6%
  • Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 4.1%
  • Hispanic or Latino origin — 2.7%
  • Two or more races — 2.4%
  • Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 3.5%
  • American Indian and Alaska Native alone — 0.7%

Categories are how people answered the census — a fact about the bearers, not a property of the name. Conclusions are ours, not the Census Bureau’s.

Try it How Rare Is It?

Where this name sits between household and almost unheard of.

Common

  • People counted143,982
  • Rank#392
  • Roughly1 in 2,302 people

Open the full entry

Open How Rare Is It? 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