Tempest
Feminine · “A violent storm”
Tempest is a weather word with a play attached. English has a small group of storm names — Storm, Tempest, Gale, Rain — and Tempest is the most literary of them, because Shakespeare's last solo play carries the title. Its American peak in 1990, though, has a much more specific and much more recent cause.
How old is the name Tempest?
Tempest first appears in US birth records in 1915 — 110 years ago. The typical Tempest alive today was born around 1992, making them about 33 years old. About 1,300 people named Tempest are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Tempest most popular?
Tempest peaked in 1990, reaching #1557 nationally. Today it ranks #6838, 5,281 places below that high. See the whole 1990 chart.
Where it comes from
From tempestas to Tempest
The story of Tempest
Word names of this kind rarely enter the American data on their own; they need a bearer. Tempest was almost absent before 1984, when the actress Tempestt Bledsoe joined a very widely watched television series, and it appears in the records immediately afterward, rising for six years to a 1990 peak and falling away through the 1990s. That is the classic shape of a name carried by a single visible person. The Shakespeare association is genuine and adds weight, but it is not what moved the curve.
Meaning
"A violent storm", from Latin "season, weather"
From Old French tempeste, from Latin tempestas, which meant a season or a period of time and then, by extension, the weather of that period and finally bad weather specifically. Tempus, time, is the same root. The drift from "season" to "storm" happened inside Latin itself.
How the name formed
- tempestas
- tempeste
- tempest
- Tempest
Related forms: Tempête · Tempestad
Pronouncing Tempest
TEM-pist
Two syllables with the stress on the first, exactly as the common noun. There is no ambiguity in the pronunciation at all — the difficulty of this name is entirely in its meaning.
Nicknames for Tempest
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
- 1915
- Most girls named
- 199098 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1557reached in 1990
- Change vs 2024
- +33.3%16 in 2025, from 12
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.
Tempest in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Tempête in French — related form
- Tempestad in Spanish — related form
Tempests among us
people named Tempest are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 100,454 born in 2025 was named Tempest
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 Darlean test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Tempest's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Darlean climbed just as high around 1958, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Darlean's path sketches the road Tempest is walking now.
Tempest 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
Tempest beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Tempest in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The Shakespeare connection is real and gives the name a literary anchor most word names lack.
- The etymology is settled and unexpectedly gentle — the Latin root means simply a season.
- It is instantly pronounceable and instantly spelled.
- It names a destructive storm, which is a strong thing for a name to say.
- The available nickname is unkind, and children find it fast.
- The 1990 peak is closely tied to one television personality.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Tempest
Feminine · #6838 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Tempests are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,300 people named Tempest are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Tempest in 2025?
- Tempest ranks #6838 among US girl names in 2025, with 16 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Tempest?
- About 1 in every 100,454 US girls born in 2025 was named Tempest — 16 in all.
- Will my child share the name Tempest with classmates?
- Tempest will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Tempest
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Malana#6838 · Jeannie#6838 · Maxie#6838 · Nicol#6838 · Chaney#6838 · Keana#6838 · Concetta#6838 · Pheobe#6838
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Tempest? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Tempest and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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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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