How popular is the baby name Therese 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 Therese.

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Popularity of the baby name Therese


Posts that mention the name Therese

Baby girl given 24 names

In November of 1946, various U.S. newspapers ran a story about a recently deceased Seattle man with 17 given names. William Cary, born in Indiana in the mid-1860s, had 16 middle names taken from the surnames of officers his father had served with during the Civil War.

Days after the story was published, Paul A. Henning of Denver, Colorado, welcomed a baby girl. Impressed by William Cary’s long name, Henning decided that his daughter’s name should be even longer. So he gave her 24 names.

Her full name was Mary Ann Bernadette Helen Therese Juanita Oliva Alice Louise Harriet Lucille Henrietta Celeste Corolla Constance Cecile Margaret Rose Eugene Yvonne Florentine Lolita Grace Isabelle Henning.

Sources:

  • “What’s in Name? This Baby Given 24 for a Starter.” Milwaukee Journal 11 Nov. 1946: 1.
  • “Had Plenty of Names.” Beaver Valley Times 1 Nov. 1946: 3.

Catholic names to watch: Teresa and Fatima

Lúcia, Francisco, and Jacinta
Lúcia, Francisco, and Jacinta

The baby names Teresa and Fatima might see higher usage in 2016 and 2017, respectively, thanks to Catholic influence.

Teresa

On September 4, 2016, Mother Teresa will officially be declared a saint of the Catholic Church.

Mother Teresa’s religious name honors St. Thérèse de Lisieux, but she opted for the Spanish spelling “Teresa” when she took her religious vows (back in 1931) because another nun in the convent was already using the name “Thérèse.”

Her birth name was Anjezë, an Albanian form of Agnes, which can be traced back to the ancient Greek word hagnos, meaning “pure, chaste.”

Fatima

Next year marks the 100th anniversary of the Marian apparitions seen by three shepherd children (Lúcia, Francisco, and Jacinta) near the town of Fátima, Portugal.

The place name Fátima is based on the Arabic personal name Fatimah, meaning “to wean.”

If the usage of Fatima does rise in the U.S. in 2017, I’ll be curious to see how much of that increase comes from states with large Portuguese populations (like Massachusetts, California, and Rhode Island).

…Which of these two names do you prefer?

Update, 5/18/2017: The name Teresa did rise in usage, but only slightly, in 2016.

Source: Our Lady of Fátima – Wikipedia
Image: Children of Fatima

The Dionne quintuplets…and their 9 other siblings

dionne family
Most of the Dionne family

The Dionne quintuplets — the first set of quints known to survive infancy — were born in Ontario, Canada, on May 28, 1934. But identical sisters Yvonne, Annette, Cecile, Emilie and Marie weren’t the only children in the Dionne family. Over the course of 20 years, parents Oliva-Edouard and Elzire Dionne had a total of 14 children — 6 before the quints, 3 after.

Here are the names and birth years of all 14:

  1. Ernest (1926)
  2. Rose (1928)
  3. Therese (1929)
  4. Leo (1930)
  5. Daniel (1932)
  6. Pauline (1933)
  7. * Yvonne (1934)
  8. * Annette (1934)
  9. * Cecile (1934)
  10. * Emilie (1934)
  11. * Marie (1934)
  12. Oliva Jr. (1936)
  13. Victor (1938)
  14. Claude (1946)

Which of these names do you like most?

Sources: Dionne Quintuplets – Wikipedia, The Story of the Dionne Quintuplets

110+ Hidden gems: Rare baby girl names

gemstone

Want a girl name that’s not popular, but also not unheard of?

I looked through the names at the bottom of SSA’s 2011 mega-list and found a bunch of hidden gems:

  1. Alberta (9 baby girls)
  2. Alexandrina (6)
  3. Amity (28)
  4. Apollonia (21)
  5. Augusta (31)
  6. Augustina (15)
  7. Avelina (34)
  8. Bernadine (6)
  9. Bertha (45)
  10. Bettina (8)
  11. Blanche (6)
  12. Bryony (5); Briony (16)
  13. Carlotta (20)
  14. Celestina (19)
  15. Celestine (7)
  16. Cicely (14)
  17. Claribel (19)
  18. Clarice (37)
  19. Clarity (17)
  20. Claudette (9)
  21. Claudine (9)
  22. Clementina (7)
  23. Constantina (5)
  24. Coretta (5)
  25. Corinna (37)
  26. Cornelia (17)
  27. Damiana (10)
  28. Davida (10)
  29. Delphine (26)
  30. Dinah (44)
  31. Dolores (39)
  32. Dorothea (15)
  33. Edwina (8)
  34. Eloisa (42)
  35. Enid (15)
  36. Ernestina (5)
  37. Eugenia (29)
  38. Eugenie (8)
  39. Eulalia (25)
  40. Euphemia (5)
  41. Evita (13)
  42. Fabiana (47)
  43. Faustina (21)
  44. Flavia (12)
  45. Floriana (6)
  46. Florina (6)
  47. Georgette (24)
  48. Gertrude (16)
  49. Gloriana (22)
  50. Golda (34)
  51. Goldie (37)
  52. Heloise (8)
  53. Henrietta (34)
  54. Hilda (40)
  55. Imelda (23)
  56. Io (9)
  57. Ione (26)
  58. Isidora (13)
  59. Jeanne (39)
  60. Josette (27)
  61. Junia (17)
  62. Linnaea (12)
  63. Lucette (7)
  64. Lucienne (43)
  65. Lucilla (12)
  66. Marietta (22)
  67. Maude (9)
  68. Mavis (38)
  69. Minerva (38)
  70. Nanette (8)
  71. Nell (32)
  72. Nella (38)
  73. Nicola (30)
  74. Nicoletta (19)
  75. Nicolina (29)
  76. Odette (48)
  77. Olympia (22)
  78. Orla (28); Orlagh (6)
  79. Phillipa (10)
  80. Philomena (41)
  81. Phyllis (20)
  82. Rhoda (28)
  83. Romana (6)
  84. Rosabella (46)
  85. Rosalba (17)
  86. Rosaline (20)
  87. Rosella (26)
  88. Rosetta (25)
  89. Rosette (5)
  90. Rosina (17)
  91. Rowena (15)
  92. Rubina (5)
  93. Rue (13)
  94. Sebastiana (5)
  95. Seraphine (19)
  96. Sigrid (15)
  97. Stephania (32)
  98. Sybilla (5)
  99. Talulla (5)
  100. Therese (47)
  101. Thomasina (6)
  102. Thora (19)
  103. Tova (43)
  104. Ulyssa (8)
  105. Ursula (25)
  106. Vashti (16)
  107. Verity (38)
  108. Violetta (46)
  109. Vita (36)
  110. Wanda (23)
  111. Winifred (30)
  112. Winona (20)
  113. Xanthe (7)
  114. Zenaida (36)
  115. Zenobia (22)
  116. Zillah (9)
  117. Zipporah (41); Tzipporah (12)

(In some cases, a different spelling of the name is more popular than what’s shown here. For instance, Isidora is rare, but Isadora is more common.)

Like any of these?

Did you spot any other great end-of-the-list names?

P.S. Here’s the boys’ list.

Image by Tahlia Doyle from Unsplash