Humanverse

Theo vs Theresia

American parents have registered 39,333 Theos since 1880, against 2,016 Theresias. Theo is still ahead, with 3,966 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Theo against Theresia, 1880 to 2025 0 1.3k 2.5k 3.8k 5k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Theo Theresia

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Of the 146 years in which either name was published, Theo for 143 years and Theresia for 3 years. The lead changed hands 6 times.

Side by side

  Theo Theresia
Total US births 39,3332,016
Most in one year 4,18258
Babies in 2025 3,966under 5
Estimated living today 33,0001,000
Median age today 464
Peak year 20231959
Best rank 78th boys1,407th girls
Rank in 2025 82ndunranked
First recorded 18801881
Girls / boys 3,503 / 35,8302,016 / 0

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Which name is older

Half of the Theresias alive today are over 64; half the Theos are over 4. That is 60 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Theo Theresia
France 133,745 Théo570
England and Wales 43,0013

Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Theo and Theresia.