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Theadora vs Theodore

American parents have registered 318,175 Theodores since 1880, against 1,507 Theadoras. Theodore is still ahead, with 13,362 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Theadora against Theodore, 1880 to 2025 0 4k 8k 12k 16k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Theadora Theodore

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

Theodore 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 1994, when Theadora had 21 and Theodore had 941.

Side by side

  Theadora Theodore
Total US births 1,507318,175
Most in one year 10613,362
Babies in 2025 8613,362
Estimated living today 1,200202,000
Median age today 713
Peak year 20242025
Best rank 1,884th girls4th boys
Rank in 2025 2,153rd4th
First recorded 19061880
Girls / boys 1,507 / 0969 / 317,206

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 Theodores alive today are over 13; half the Theadoras are over 7. That is 6 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 Theadora Theodore
England and Wales 65632,849
Scotland 15996
Ireland 31,003

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: Theadora and Theodore.