Teia
Feminine · “Greek theia”
Theia was the Titaness of sight and shining, mother of the sun and the moon, and her name simply means goddess. It also belongs to a planet that no longer exists: the Mars-sized body that astronomers believe struck the Earth and made the Moon.
How old is the name Teia?
Teia first appears in US birth records in 1957 — 68 years ago. The typical Teia alive today was born around 1990, making them about 35 years old. About 1,000 people named Teia are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Teia most popular?
Teia peaked in 1980, reaching #2096 nationally. Today it ranks #10107, 8,011 places below that high. See the whole 1980 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Theia to Teia
The story of Teia
In Hesiod, Theia is one of the twelve Titans and the mother of Helios the sun, Selene the moon and Eos the dawn. She is associated with sight and with the shining of precious metals, and her name is the plain feminine of the word for a god, which makes her one of the few figures in Greek myth whose name is simply her category. When planetary scientists needed a name for the body that struck the young Earth and threw off the material that became the Moon, they took hers, because in the myth she is the Moon's mother. The impact is dated to roughly four and a half billion years ago and the body itself no longer exists in any form, so the name now belongs to a Titaness, a hypothesis and a girl, in that order.
Meaning
Greek theia, goddess
Theia is the feminine of Greek theos, a god, so the name of the Titaness means simply goddess. Teia is a spelling of it, and is also used as a variant of Taya and Tia. In 2000 the hypothetical body whose collision with the early Earth formed the Moon was named Theia after her, since she was the mother of Selene. This spelling's peak is 1980.
How the name formed
- Theia
- Teia
Related forms: Theia · Taya · Teia
Pronouncing Teia
TAY-uh
Two syllables, stress on the first. The Greek Theia begins with the th of thin; the Teia spelling drops it, and some families say TEE-uh instead.
Nicknames for Teia
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
- 1957
- Most girls named
- 198049 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2096reached in 1980
- Change vs 2024
- −10.0%9 in 2025, from 10
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.
Teia in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Theia in Greek — same name
- Taya in English — related form
- Teia in Romanian — same name
Teias among us
people named Teia are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 178,585 born in 2025 was named Teia
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Teia
- #10107
- Teia on the 2025 chart
- #924
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Teia went to 9 girls in 2025, but Teya and Teyah are the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 36, which makes it the 924th most-given girls’ name of the year — 9,183 places above the chart.
- Teya22
- Teia9
- Teyah5
About 1 girl in 44,646 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 178,585 for Teia 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 Francia test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Teia's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Francia climbed just as high around 1941, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Francia's path sketches the road Teia is walking now.
Teia 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
Teia beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Teia in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Four letters and two open syllables.
- Tia works as a short form and as a full name.
- The mythological figure behind it is documented and unusual.
- Two pronunciations of the first syllable are current.
- The Greek spelling with th is the one classical references use.
- It will be heard as Tia, Taya or Tea.
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What they receive
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Teia
Feminine · #10107 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Teias are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,000 people named Teia are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Teia?
- Teia is one of 3 recorded spellings. Teya is the more common one — 22 births in 2025 against 9 for Teia.
- How popular is the name Teia in 2025?
- Teia ranks #10107 among US girl names in 2025, with 9 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Teia?
- About 1 in every 178,585 US girls born in 2025 was named Teia — 9 in all.
- Will my child share the name Teia with classmates?
- Teia will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Teia
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Berta#10107 · Jettie#10107 · Maye#10107 · Osa#10107 · Fidelia#10107 · Alysa#10107 · Su#10107 · Willie#10107
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Teia? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Teia and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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