How popular is the baby name Tessalee in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Use the popularity graph and data table below to find out! Plus, see all the blog posts that mention the name Tessalee.

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Popularity of the baby name Tessalee


Posts that mention the name Tessalee

Interesting one-hit wonder names in the U.S. baby name data

single flower

They came, they went, and they never came back!

These baby names are one-hit wonders in the U.S. baby name data. That is, they’ve only popped up once, ever, in the entire dataset of U.S. baby names (which accounts for all names given to at least 5 U.S. babies per year since 1880).

There are thousands of one-hit wonders in the dataset, but the names below have interesting stories behind their single appearance, so these are the one-hits I’m writing specific posts about. Just click on a name to read more.

2020s

  • 2020: Jexi

2010s

2000s

1990s

1980s

1970s

1960s

1950s

1940s

1930s

1920s

1910s

1900s

  • (none yet)

1890s

As I discover (and write about) more one-hit wonders in the data, I’ll add the names/links to this page. In the meanwhile, do you have any favorite one-hit wonder baby names?

Image: Adapted from Solitary Poppy by Andy Beecroft under CC BY-SA 2.0.

[Latest update: Apr. 2024]

Where did the baby name Tessalee come from in 2007?

The book "Firefly Cloak" (2006) by Sheri Reynolds
The book “Firefly Cloak“

The compound name Tessalee is so rare that it has only appeared in the U.S. baby name data once, in 2007:

  • 2009: unlisted
  • 2008: unlisted
  • 2007: 6 baby girls named Tessalee [debut]
  • 2006: unlisted
  • 2005: unlisted

What put it there?

My best guess is the 2006 coming-of-age novel The Firefly Cloak by American author Sheri Reynolds. The book features a main character named Tessa Lee:

When 8-year old Tessa Lee and her brother, Travis, are abandoned in a campground by their desperate mother and her boyfriend of the moment, their mother leaves them only two things: a phone number printed in Magic Marker on Travis’s back and her favorite housecoat, printed with tiny fireflies, that she places over her sleeping children.

I’m not sure how well the novel sold, but one of Reynolds’ earlier novels, The Rapture of Canaan (1995), became an Oprah‘s Book Club selection in 1997, and consequently both a New York Times bestseller and a Publishers Weekly bestseller. So her later books certainly would have been on readers’ radars.

That said…the name Tessa also happened to see a boost in usage in 2007. In fact, that was the year Tessa saw peak usage overall. So whatever was influencing Tessa (actress Tessa Thompson perhaps?) may have been influencing Tessalee as well.

What do you think of the name Tessalee? Would you use it as a single name, or do you prefer “Tessa Lee” as a first/middle combo?

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