Terah
Feminine
Terah is given to both — 1,373 girls and 43 boys since 1880. See other names given to both
Terah is a man in the Bible and a woman in America, which is a common enough crossing. What is less common is what the man does: he sets out from Ur for Canaan with his family, gets halfway, stops in a town called Haran, and stays there until he dies. The text gives no reason at all, and the journey is completed a generation later by his son.
How old is the name Terah?
Terah first appears in US birth records in 1955 — 70 years ago. The typical Terah alive today was born around 1985, making them about 40 years old. About 1,300 people named Terah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Terah most popular?
Terah peaked in 1983, reaching #1700 nationally. See the whole 1983 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From A name in the earliest genealogies of Genesis to Terah
The story of Terah
The unexplained stop is one of the quieter puzzles in Genesis. The family leaves, has a destination, and does not reach it; the narrative simply records that they came to Haran and settled there, and that the father died at a great age without moving on. Commentators have filled the gap with everything from illness to idolatry to a change of heart, and the text supports none of it. What it does is set up the son's departure as a second attempt at a journey somebody else had already abandoned, which changes the shape of the story that follows. A name from a genealogy usually carries nothing; this one carries a stop that nobody explains.
Meaningnot established
Not established
The Hebrew name has no established meaning. Proposals connect it to a word about wandering, to a moon god and to a place name, and none is supported. That is the ordinary situation for names in the earliest genealogies, where the words are older than the language that preserved them and the text supplies no explanation.
How the name formed
- A name in the earliest genealogies of Genesis
- A man who set out for Canaan and stopped halfway
- Almost unused in English for centuries
- Terah in American records for both sexes
Related forms: Terach
Pronouncing Terah
TER-uh
Two syllables, stress on the first. Hebrew ends the name with a throat consonant that English has no letter for and drops entirely, so the h at the end is a transliteration mark rather than a silent decoration.
Nicknames for Terah
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
- 1955
- Most girls named
- 198565 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1700reached in 1983
- Change vs 2017
- 0.0%5 in 2018, 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.
Terah in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Terach in Hebrew — same name
Terahs among us
people named Terah 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
Terah 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
- It is short, clear and immediately sayable with no ambiguity.
- It works on the register for either child, which the record confirms.
- It carries a genuine biblical figure with an unusually interesting silence attached.
- The name belongs to a man in the text, which anybody who looks it up will find.
- There is no meaning to give, which is ordinary for names of that layer.
- It will be written Tara, Tera or Terra by people taking it from speech.
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What they receive
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Terah
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Terahs 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 Terah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Terah in 2025?
- Terah is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Terah with classmates?
- Terah 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 Terah? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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