Teal
Feminine · “English "a small freshwater duck”
Teal is given to both — 1,604 girls and 302 boys since 1880. See other names given to both
Teal is a duck, and the color is named after the stripe on its head. English does this repeatedly: salmon, fawn, canary and lavender are all things first and shades second — the language names colors by pointing at objects rather than by describing them.
How old is the name Teal?
Teal first appears in US birth records in 1957 — 68 years ago. The typical Teal alive today was born around 1990, making them about 35 years old. About 1,600 people named Teal are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Teal most popular?
Teal peaked in 1961, reaching #1955 nationally. Today it ranks #7885, 5,930 places below that high. See the whole 1961 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From tele to Teal
The story of Teal
English has very few basic color words — the standard count is eleven — and it fills the gaps by borrowing objects: orange from the fruit, violet and lilac and lavender from flowers, salmon and fawn and mauve from a mollusc dye, turquoise from a stone, indigo from a plant, khaki from the Urdu word for dust, and teal from a duck. That method has a consequence: the color word carries the object with it, so teal is permanently a bird as well as a shade. Color names as given names are largely a late twentieth-century development, with Teal appearing thinly from the 1950s; the figures peak in 1961.
Meaning
English "a small freshwater duck", hence the color
From Middle English tele, a small dabbling duck, of Germanic origin. The color name is recorded from the early twentieth century, taken from the blue-green stripe on the head of the common teal. As a given name it belongs to the modern class of color and nature names, alongside Sage, Wren, River and Indigo.
How the name formed
- tele
- teal
- Teal
Related forms: Teale
Pronouncing Teal
teel
One syllable, rhyming with heel. There is no alternative pronunciation, and the spelling is unambiguous.
Nicknames for Teal
Limited
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
- 1957
- Most girls named
- 199466 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1955reached in 1961
- Change vs 2024
- −27.8%13 in 2025, from 18
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.
Teal in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Teale in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California.
Teals among us
people named Teal are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 123,636 born in 2025 was named Teal
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Marlin test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Teal's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Marlin climbed just as high around 1941, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Marlin's path sketches the road Teal is walking now.
Teal sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Teal beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Teal in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- One syllable and four letters, impossible to mispronounce.
- The word is familiar to everyone as a color.
- It is short and distinctive without being invented.
- It names a duck as well as a color.
- It reads as unisex to many Americans.
- Very short names are sometimes taken for clippings.
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What they receive
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Teal
Feminine · #7885 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Teals are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,600 people named Teal are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Teal in 2025?
- Teal ranks #7885 among US girl names in 2025, with 13 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Teal?
- About 1 in every 123,636 US girls born in 2025 was named Teal — 13 in all.
- Will my child share the name Teal with classmates?
- Teal will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Teal
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Ola#7885 · Loula#7885 · Consuelo#7885 · Santa#7885 · Florentina#7885 · Marty#7885 · Jaye#7885 · Dollie#7885
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Teal? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Teal and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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Weighing a whole shortlist? Add the rest in the builder, or settle it with a bracket.
Cast your vote
Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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