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Theodorus vs Theresa

American parents have registered 405,831 Theresas since 1880, against 35 Theodoruses. Theresa is still ahead, with 136 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Theodorus against Theresa, 1880 to 2025 0 3k 6k 9k 12k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Theodorus Theresa

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

Theresa has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1880 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2024, when Theodorus had 14 and Theresa had 146.

Side by side

  Theodorus Theresa
Total US births 35405,831
Most in one year 1411,991
Babies in 2025 5136
Estimated living today 40266,000
Median age today 162
Peak year 20241961
Best rank 6,199th boys35th girls
Rank in 2025 12,008th1,548th
First recorded 20201880
Girls / boys 0 / 35404,613 / 1,218

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 Theresas alive today are over 62; half the Theodoruses are over 1. That is 61 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Both names abroad

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

Country Theodorus Theresa
France 52,285
England and Wales 6664

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: Theodorus and Theresa.