Teresa

Popularity, 1880–2025

girls named Teresa boys named Teresa

By the numbers

Total US births

417,209

Estimated living today

341,000

Median age today

62

Peak year

1961

Best rank

18th

Rank in 2025

908th

First recorded

1880

Girls / boys

416,044 / 1,165

How old the living Teresas are

born that year still alive today

Of the 417,209 babies given the name since 1880, about 341,000 are alive — 82 in every hundred. Roughly 7,100 of them are children and 123,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1963 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

First recorded as the name of a fourth-century Spanish saint. Of obscure origin; suggestions include Therasia or Thera, ancient name of the Greek island Thira.

Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Notable Teresas

• Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582)Roman Catholic saint
• Teresa Teng (1953–1995)Taiwanese ROC singer
• Teresa Wright (1918–2005)American actress
• Teresa Palmer (born 1986)Australian actress, model, writer and producer
• Teresa Cristina of the Two Sicilies (1822–1889)Princess of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and Empress of the Empire of Brazil
• Teresa Ribera (born 1969)Spanish politician
• Teresa Ciepły (1937–2006)Polish sprinter and hurdler
• Teresa Edwards (born 1964)American basketball player

People named Teresa with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).

Where Teresa is most common

• CA41,402
• TX29,693
• OH22,630
• NY22,338
• NC18,781
• IL16,575
• PA15,626
• TN14,852
• GA13,833
• IN13,785

Relative to how many babies each state records, Teresa is most concentrated in Tennessee (1.7×), West Virginia (1.6×), North Carolina (1.6×), Kentucky (1.6×).

Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.

Names of 1961

The most popular girls’ names the year Teresa peaked:

• Mary
• Lisa
• Susan
• Linda
• Karen
• Patricia

All the names of 1961

Teresa elsewhere

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.

Teresa: births by region

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, Teresa is most concentrated in Ticino, where 0.05% of children were given it – 30 of them.

Teresa: rank by region

In 1995, Teresa was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.

In 2023, Teresa was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.

In 2025, Teresa was given 2 times or more in 12 regions of Poland.

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.

Teresa by city

One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.

Teresa 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.

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.

Where Teresa lives in Spain

Not a count of births but of people: 99,940 women called Teresa were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.

Women: the provinces where it is densest

Listed in 52 of Spain's 52 provinces. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.

Related names

• Terry
• Terri
• Terrence
• Terrance
• Teri
• Terrell
• Terence
• Terrie
• Terra
• Tera
• Terese
• Teressa

Teresa against another name

Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.

• Teresa vs Theresa
• Teresa vs Terry
• Teresa vs Terri
• Teresa vs Terrence
• Teresa vs Terrance
• Teresa vs Teri

Compare Teresa with a name of your own