Theodore
Theodore is a boy's name that peaked in 2025, when it was the 4th most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 4th. About 202,000 Theodores are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 13.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Theodore boys named Theodore
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 318,175
- Estimated living today
- 202,000
- Median age today
- 13
- Peak year
- 2025
- Best rank
- 4th
- Rank in 2025
- 4th
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 969 / 317,206
How old the living Theodores are
born that year still alive today
Of the 318,175 babies given the name since 1880, about 202,000 are alive — 64 in every hundred. Roughly 108,000 of them are children and 37,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2012 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 Latin, from Ancient Greek
The name was popularized in reference to the prominent St Theodore of Amasea. Unrelated to Theodoric.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Theodores
- Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)26th President of the United States from 1901 to 1909
- Glenn Theodore Seaborg (1912–1999)American chemist
- Theodore Dreiser (1871–1945)American novelist and journalist
- Theodore I (died 649)pope
- Theodore II (840–897)pope
- Théodore Géricault (1791–1824)French painter
- Theodore William Richards (1868–1928)United States chemist
- Theodore Schultz (1902–1998)American economist
People named Theodore with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Theodore is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Theodore is most concentrated in the District of Columbia (1.9×), Vermont (1.7×), Connecticut (1.7×), New Hampshire (1.7×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2025
The most popular boys’ names the year Theodore peaked:
Theodore elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| England and Wales boys | Theodore | 32,849 | 11th |
| France boys | Theodore +1 spelling | 15,315 | 87th |
| New Zealand boys | Theodore | 1,462 | 6th |
| Ireland boys | Theodore | 1,003 | 44th |
| Scotland boys | Theodore | 996 | 36th |
| Belgium boys | Théodore +1 spelling | 736 | 198th |
| Northern Ireland boys | Theodore | 445 | 32nd |
| Switzerland boys | Théodore +1 spelling | 429 | 351st |
| France girls | Theodore | 200 | 712th |
| Poland boys | Theodore +1 spelling | 149 birth registrations | 252nd |
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.
Theodore: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German boys | Switzerland | Theodore | 109 | 0.009% | 367th |
| German boys | Switzerland | Théodore | 39 | 0.003% | 826th |
| French boys | Switzerland | Théodore | 186 | 0.043% | 128th |
| French boys | Switzerland | Theodore | 91 | 0.021% | 211th |
| Italian boys | Switzerland | Theodore | 2 | 0.003% | 112th |
| Italian boys | Switzerland | Théodore | 2 | 0.003% | 193rd |
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, Theodore is most concentrated in Geneva, where 0.12% of children were given it – 127 of them.
Theodore: rank by region
In 2025, Theodore was given 5 times or more in 5 regions of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Theodore | 240 | 25 |
| Flanders | Théodore | 376 | 15 |
| Wallonia | Théodore | 123 | 23 |
| Brussels | Théodore | 64 | 15 |
| Brussels | Theodore | 104 | 11 |
In 2025, Theodore was given 2 times or more in 6 regions of Poland.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kujawsko-Pomorskie | Theodore | 164 | 2 |
| Lubelskie | Theodore | 140 | 2 |
| Mazowieckie | Theodore | 204 | 6 |
| Śląskie | Theodore | 254 | 2 |
| Wielkopolskie | Theodore | 215 | 3 |
| Zachodniopomorskie | Theodore | 168 | 2 |
In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Theodore appears in the lists for Brussels-Capital Region (Théodore, 64th), Province of Walloon Brabant (Théodore, 64th), Province of Namur (Théodore, 66th), Brussels-Capital Region (Theodore, 104th), Province of Hainaut (Théodore, 153rd), Province of Flemish Brabant (Theodore, 155th), Province of Flemish Brabant (Théodore, 177th), Province of West Flanders (Theodore, 178th) and Province of East Flanders (Theodore, 264th).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, 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.
Theodore by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin boys | 2017–2023 | 7 | 531st |
| Berlin boys | 2017–2023 | 4 | 584th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Theodore 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland boys | Theodore +1 spelling | 100 | 192 |
A count of people on a register – 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
Theodore 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.