Talia
Feminine · “dew from God" in Hebrew”
Talia is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 34,154 girls against 5 boys since 1880.
Talia arrives in English by two separate roads that happen to meet at the same five letters — one Hebrew, one Greek — and it has been carried on both for a long time. It is a name that can be said in two syllables or three, and both are correct depending on whose family is saying it. Short, open-voweled, and easy to call across a room.
How old is the name Talia?
Talia first appears in US birth records in 1960 — 65 years ago. The typical Talia alive today was born around 2008, making them about 17 years old. About 34,000 people named Talia are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Talia most popular?
Talia peaked in 2023, reaching #264 nationally. Today it ranks #265, 1 places below that high. See the whole 2023 chart.
Talia appears on these lists:
Where it comes from
From Thaleia to Talia
The story of Talia
On the Hebrew side, Talya has been in steady use in Israel through the twentieth century, part of a whole family of names built on tal, "dew" — a word that carries real weight in a dry country. On the Greek side, Thaleia belonged to a Muse and to one of the Graces, and the name shed its h in Italian, where Talia is the title character of Giambattista Basile's seventeenth-century tale "Sole, Luna e Talia," an early ancestor of Sleeping Beauty. English speakers have taken up the shorter, h-less spelling most readily, which is why American records show Talia far more often than Thalia. Its strongest footholds in the United States are in California, New York and Texas — states where both Jewish and Italian naming traditions have deep roots.
Meaningscholars disagree
"dew from God" in Hebrew; "to blossom, flourish" in the Greek line
Two genuinely different names share this spelling. The Hebrew Talya comes from tal, "dew", with the divine element -yah, read as "dew from God"; the same Semitic root also gives an Aramaic word for a young lamb or young girl. Separately, Talia is the Italian form of Greek Thaleia, from thallein, "to bloom or flourish" — the name of one of the Muses and one of the Graces. Which meaning belongs to a given Talia depends entirely on which road her family came by.
How the name formed
- Thaleia
- Thalia
- Talia
Related forms: Talya · Thalia · Talia · Tahlia · Talía
Pronouncing Talia
TAHL-yuh
Also widely said TAH-lee-uh, in three syllables. The Hebrew pronunciation runs closer to tahl-YAH, with the stress at the end. All three are in real use, so expect to say which you mean at least once per new acquaintance.
Nicknames for Talia
High
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
- 1960
- Most girls named
- 20231,183 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #264reached in 2023
- Change vs 2024
- +1.5%1,180 in 2025, from 1,163
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.
Talia in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Talya in Hebrew — transliteration
- Thalia in Greek — related form
- Talia in Italian — same name
- Tahlia in English — spelling variant
- Talía in Spanish — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, New York, Texas.
Talias among us
people named Talia are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 1,362 born in 2025 was named Talia
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Talia
- #265
- Talia on the 2025 chart
- #208
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Talia went to 1,180 girls in 2025, but Taliyah, Taliah and Talya and the rest below are the same name said out loud. Together the 7 spellings went to 1,586, which makes it the 208th most-given girls’ name of the year — 57 places above the chart.
and 1 rarer spelling.
About 1 girl in 1,013 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 1,362 for Talia itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Bernadine test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Talia's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Bernadine climbed just as high around 1931, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Bernadine's path sketches the road Talia is walking now.
Talia is climbing fast right now. Steep climbs tend to come with steep descents — the quicker a name arrives, the more firmly it belongs to its moment.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Talia is headed
Talia should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
High confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Talia beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Talia in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Two established short forms, Tali and Tal, both of which work as standalone names.
- Recognizable and pronounceable in Hebrew, Italian, Greek and Spanish-speaking settings without respelling.
- A documented line back to Greek Thaleia on one side and Hebrew tal on the other — long history, no invention required.
- Short, clearly stressed, and spelled the way most English speakers would guess from hearing it.
- The spelling competes with Thalia, Tahlia and Talya, so there will be a lifetime of gentle corrections — though Talia is the version American records show most often.
- Two accepted pronunciations, TAHL-yuh and TAH-lee-uh, means she will likely end up choosing one and repeating it.
- It is close in sound to Dahlia, Natalia and Amelia, so mishearings on the phone are common.
- The name has been gaining ground steadily rather than sitting still, so it may feel more familiar in a decade than it does now.
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What they receive
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Talia
Feminine · #265 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Talias are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 34,000 people named Talia are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Talia?
- Talia is the most-used spelling in US records — 1,180 of the 1,586 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Taliyah, Taliah, Talya, Taliya and Talyah.
- How popular is the name Talia in 2025?
- Talia ranks #265 among US girl names in 2025, with 1,180 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Talia?
- About 1 in every 1,362 US girls born in 2025 was named Talia — 1,180 in all.
- Will my child share the name Talia with classmates?
- Talia will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Talia
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Ophelia#264 · Aspen#266 · Aliyah#263 · Elaina#267 · Norah#262 · Selena#268 · Arleth#269 · Nayeli#270
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Talia? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Talia and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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