Tabetha
Feminine · “gazelle”
Tabetha is Tabitha with one vowel changed, and the vowel it changes is the Aramaic one. The name comes from a single verse in the Acts of the Apostles, where a woman is introduced by two names at once, in two languages, which is why she is the only person in the New Testament whose name is translated on the spot.
How old is the name Tabetha?
Tabetha first appears in US birth records in 1965 — 60 years ago. The typical Tabetha alive today was born around 1984, making them about 41 years old. About 3,800 people named Tabetha are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Tabetha most popular?
Tabetha peaked in 1984, reaching #784 nationally. See the whole 1984 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From tabitha to Tabetha
The story of Tabetha
The passage is brief: a woman at Joppa, known for the clothes she made for the poor, dies, and Peter is fetched. Acts gives her name in Aramaic and then translates it into Greek in the same sentence, so English inherited both Tabitha and Dorcas from one verse, and Puritan families used them almost interchangeably. Tabitha carried into English use, faded, and returned in the twentieth century. Tabetha is the respelling that appears once the name is being heard rather than read: the second vowel is unstressed and English hears it as an e, so an e is what gets written.
Meaning
gazelle
The Aramaic tabitha means a gazelle, and the text itself supplies the Greek equivalent, Dorcas, which means the same. The two names have run in parallel in English ever since.
How the name formed
- tabitha
- Tabitha
- Tabetha
Related forms: Dorcas · Tabitha · Tabita
Pronouncing Tabetha
TAB-uh-thuh
Three syllables with the weight at the front. The middle vowel is reduced to almost nothing, which is exactly why it can be written i or e without changing the sound.
Nicknames for Tabetha
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1965
- Most girls named
- 1984204 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #784reached in 1984
- Change vs 2015
- +20.0%6 in 2016, from 5
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Tabetha in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Dorcas in Greek — related form
- Tabitha in Aramaic — transliteration
- Tabita in Spanish — spelling variant
Tabethas among us
people named Tabetha are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Tabetha sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- The meaning is concrete, pleasant and given in the source text itself rather than reconstructed.
- Tabby and Tab are ready short forms with quite different characters.
- It is said correctly on first hearing by anyone who has met the standard spelling.
- Tabitha is the standard spelling and will be written instead on almost every form.
- Tabby is also a kind of cat, and that association arrives early and stays.
- The e changes nothing about the sound, so the difference exists only on paper.
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Tabetha
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Tabethas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 3,800 people named Tabetha are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Tabetha in 2025?
- Tabetha is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Tabetha with classmates?
- Tabetha will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More T names
The most-given names starting with T, all years combined.
Teresa#908 · Theresa#1548 · Tiffany#878 · Tammy#3645 · Taylor#403 · Tina#2778 · Tracy#2153 · Thelma#4661
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Tabetha? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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