Terence
Masculine
Terence is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 34,290 boys against 170 girls since 1880.
Terence is a Roman playwright's name, and his story is unusual: born in North Africa, brought to Rome as a slave, freed by the senator who educated him, dead before thirty-five, and read in schools for eighteen centuries.
How old is the name Terence?
Terence first appears in US birth records in 1885 — 140 years ago. The typical Terence alive today was born around 1967, making them about 58 years old. About 27,500 people named Terence are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Terence most popular?
Terence peaked in 1964, reaching #241 nationally. Today it ranks #2718, 2,477 places below that high. See the whole 1964 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Terentius to Terence
The story of Terence
Publius Terentius Afer wrote six comedies in the 160s BC, and his Latin was so admired that his plays became a standard school text — Cicero praised him, and medieval nuns rewrote him for Christian audiences. The name reached Ireland as an anglicization of Toirdhealbhach and came to America with Irish emigration. Terence peaked in American records in the mid-1960s.
Meaningnot established
Not established
From the Roman family name Terentius, whose origin is not recovered — like many gens names it is probably Etruscan and resists explanation. In Ireland the name was also used to anglicize the unrelated Toirdhealbhach, which is why many Irish Terences have no Roman connection at all.
How the name formed
- Terentius
- Terence
Related forms: Terrence · Toirdhealbhach · Terenzio
Pronouncing Terence
TER-uns
Two syllables, stress on the first. All the spellings are said identically.
Nicknames for Terence
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
- 1885
- Most boys named
- 19641,014 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #241reached in 1964
- Change vs 2023
- +27.0%47 in 2025, from 37
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.
Terence in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Terrence in English — spelling variant
- Toirdhealbhach in Irish — related form
- Terenzio in Italian — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, New York, Texas.
Terences among us
people named Terence are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 36,342 born in 2025 was named Terence
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Terence
- #2718
- Terence on the 2025 chart
- #774
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Terence went to 47 boys in 2025, but Terrence is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 154, which makes it the 774th most-given boys’ name of the year — 1,944 places above the chart.
- Terrence107
- Terence47
About 1 boy in 11,091 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 36,342 for Terence 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 Darrel test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Terence's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Darrel climbed just as high around 1939, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Darrel's path sketches the road Terence is walking now.
Terence 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
Where Terence is headed
Terence is easing off slowly — about 19% fewer babies a year by 2030 if the trend continues.
Medium 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.
Terence beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Terence in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A documented Roman playwright with a genuinely remarkable life stands behind it.
- The classical single-r spelling is the historically correct one.
- Terry is available as a short form with an enormous independent record.
- The meaning of the Roman family name is genuinely unrecovered.
- Three spellings are in use in American records.
- It is closely dated to the middle of the twentieth century.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Terence
Masculine · #2718 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Terences are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 27,500 people named Terence are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Terence?
- Terence is one of 2 recorded spellings. Terrence is the more common one — 107 births in 2025 against 47 for Terence.
- How popular is the name Terence in 2025?
- Terence ranks #2718 among US boy names in 2025, with 47 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Terence?
- About 1 in every 36,342 US boys born in 2025 was named Terence — 47 in all.
- Will my child share the name Terence with classmates?
- Terence will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Terence
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Einar#2718 · Kurtis#2718 · Sasha#2718 · Jovany#2718 · Ahsan#2718 · Xavien#2718 · Yassin#2718 · Unknown#2718
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Terence? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Terence and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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