Timothy

802,946 people in America carry this name — ranked #38 of 923.

Carried mostly by the Baby Boomers.

Say it TIH muh thee

3 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

T IH1 M AH0 TH IY0 — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 802,946 2020 Census
  • Rank #38 Very common
  • As a surname 2,883 ranked #10,606 the other way round

What Timothy means and where it comes from

Latin 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.

How often Timothy has been given

1,079,420 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 1959, with 30,829 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 that fit Timothy

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

Better avoided

  • Timothy Thomas — same opening
  • Timothy Ethan — runs together
  • Timothy Todd — same opening

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

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

Is Timothy used for boys or for girls?

99.9% men
727 women

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

Where in America Timothy is thickest on the ground

In Vermont the name is given 1.8 times as often as it is across the country.

  • Vermont ×1.8
  • West Virginia ×1.8
  • New Hampshire ×1.7
  • Maine ×1.5
  • Kentucky ×1.5

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.

The same name abroad

  • Timotheus German

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 answers to it now

  • White alone (non-Hispanic) — 84.2%
  • Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 7.7%
  • Hispanic or Latino origin — 2.9%
  • Two or more races — 2.8%
  • Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 1.8%
  • American Indian and Alaska Native alone — 0.6%

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.

Same syllables and stress as Timothy

Nothing else in the file ends on the same sound — a rare thing, and useful if you want a first name nobody will echo.

Same rhythm — 3 syllables, stress on the first

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

Try it How Rare Is It?

Where this name sits between household and almost unheard of.

Very common

  • People counted802,946
  • Rank#38
  • Roughly1 in 413 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 Latin origin