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Thea vs Theodorus

American parents have registered 20,118 Theas since 1880, against 35 Theodoruses. Thea is still ahead, with 867 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Thea against Theodorus, 1880 to 2025 0 400 800 1.2k 1.6k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Thea Theodorus

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

Thea 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 Thea had 897 and Theodorus had 14.

Side by side

  Thea Theodorus
Total US births 20,11835
Most in one year 1,20914
Babies in 2025 8675
Estimated living today 19,00040
Median age today 81
Peak year 20182024
Best rank 273rd girls6,199th boys
Rank in 2025 353rd12,008th
First recorded 18802020
Girls / boys 20,113 / 50 / 35

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 Theas alive today are over 8; half the Theodoruses are over 1. That is 7 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 Thea Theodorus
France 14,930 Théa5
England and Wales 13,5746

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: Thea and Theodorus.