Thea
The girl's name Thea has been in the national records since 1880, with 20,118 births to its name. In 2025 it ranked 353rd. About 19,000 Theas are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 8.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Thea boys named Thea
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 20,118
- Estimated living today
- 19,000
- Median age today
- 8
- Peak year
- 2018
- Best rank
- 273rd
- Rank in 2025
- 353rd
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 20,113 / 5
How old the living Theas are
born that year still alive today
Of the 20,118 babies given the name since 1880, about 19,000 are alive — 92 in every hundred. Roughly 13,000 of them are children and 1,200 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2017 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
Origin Ancient Greek
Shortened from Dorothea and Theodora, ultimately from Ancient Greek θεά (“goddess”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Theas
- Cleopatra Thea (died 120 BC)queen of Seleucid Empire (c. 164–121 BCE)
- Thea von Harbou (1888–1954)German screenwriter
- Thea LaFond (born 1994)Dominica triple jumper
- Thea Garrett (born 1992)singer
- Thea Louise Stjernesund (born 1996)Norwegian female alpine skier
- Thea Gill (born 1970)Canadian actress
- Thea Beckman (1923–2004)Dutch author of children's books
- Thea Hochleitner (1925–2012)alpine skier
People named Thea with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Thea is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Thea is most concentrated in Utah (2.6×), Idaho (2.1×), Minnesota (2.1×), North Dakota (2.1×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2018
The most popular girls’ names the year Thea peaked:
Thea elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France girls | Théa +3 spellings | 14,925 | 48th |
| England and Wales girls | Thea | 13,574 | 49th |
| Norway girls | Thea | 11,899 | 4th |
| Sweden girls | Thea | 7,000 | 31st |
| Denmark girls | Thea | 2,069 | 37th |
| Belgium girls | Théa +1 spelling | 1,465 | 110th |
| Scotland girls | Thea | 1,010 | 56th |
| Switzerland girls | Thea +1 spelling | 1,000 | 112th |
| New Zealand girls | Thea | 741 | 31st |
| Italy girls | Thea | 642 | — |
| Northern Ireland girls | Thea | 440 | 42nd |
| Ireland girls | Thea +1 spelling | 432 | 136th |
| Poland girls | Thea | 42 birth registrations | 383rd |
| France boys | Théa | 5 | 4,566th |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Thea: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German girls | Switzerland | Thea | 469 | 0.038% | 101st |
| German girls | Switzerland | Théa | 16 | 0.001% | 868th |
| French girls | Switzerland | Théa | 384 | 0.088% | 35th |
| French girls | Switzerland | Thea | 94 | 0.022% | 186th |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Thea | 36 | 0.055% | 64th |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Théa | 1 | 0.002% | 188th |
Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.
By canton, Thea is most concentrated in Jura, where 0.18% of children were given it – 27 of them.
Thea: rank by region
In 2025, Thea was given 5 times or more in 5 regions of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Théa | 303 | 18 |
| Flanders | Thea | 416 | 12 |
| Wallonia | Théa | 54 | 46 |
| Brussels | Théa | 74 | 13 |
| Brussels | Thea | 194 | 6 |
In 2023, Thea was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Valle d'Aosta/Vallée d'Aoste | Thea | 8 | 1 |
In 2024, Thea was given 2 times or more in 1 region of Poland.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mazowieckie | Thea | 275 | 3 |
In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Thea appears in the lists for Province of Luxembourg (Théa, 21st), Province of Namur (Théa, 50th), Province of Liège (Théa, 55th), Province of Flemish Brabant (Théa, 73rd), Brussels-Capital Region (Théa, 74th), Province of Hainaut (Théa, 75th), Brussels-Capital Region (Thea, 194th) and Province of Antwerp (Thea, 276th).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Italy after 10 names, Poland below 2 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Thea by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 304 | 74th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Thea among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| the Netherlands girls | Thea | 2,845 | 4,885 |
| Finland girls | Thea +1 spelling | 301 | 378 |
| the Netherlands boys | Thea | 6 | 76 |
A count of people on a register – the Netherlands on 1 January 2018, Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Related names
Thea against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.