Thadeus
Masculine
Jude Thaddeus is the patron of hopeless cases, and the reason is his name. It was too close to Judas for anyone to want to pray to him, so he was left with the requests nobody else would take.
How old is the name Thadeus?
Thadeus first appears in US birth records in 1912 — 113 years ago. The typical Thadeus alive today was born around 1979, making them about 46 years old. About 800 people named Thadeus are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Thadeus most popular?
Thadeus peaked in 1918, reaching #1373 nationally. Today it ranks #10695, 9,322 places below that high. See the whole 1918 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Thaddaios to Thadeus
The story of Thadeus
The apostle appears in the gospel lists as Thaddaeus, as Lebbaeus, and as Judas not Iscariot, and the church treated all three as one man. The explanation traditionally given for his patronage is practical: petitioners avoided invoking a saint whose name was almost the same as the betrayer's, so his intercession went unrequested, and he became the saint to approach when everything else had failed. The devotion grew enormously in the twentieth century, particularly in America, where newspaper notices of thanks to St Jude were once a standard feature of the classified pages. The name itself has resisted etymology for two thousand years, which is more common among biblical names than most reference books admit.
Meaningnot established
Not established
Thaddeus is the Greek form of a name given to one of the apostles, and its origin is genuinely unknown; Aramaic derivations meaning heart or breast have been proposed without support. Thadeus is a short American spelling; the peak is 1918.
How the name formed
- Thaddaios
- Thaddeus
- Thadeus
Related forms: Thaddeus · Tadeusz · Tadeo
Pronouncing Thadeus
THAD-ee-us
Three syllables, stress on the first. The Polish Tadeusz is tah-DEH-oosh and is the same name.
Nicknames for Thadeus
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
- 1912
- Most boys named
- 191827 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1373reached in 1918
- Change vs 2022
- +20.0%6 in 2025, 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.
Thadeus in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Thaddeus in English — spelling variant
- Tadeusz in Polish — same name
- Tadeo in Spanish — same name
Thadeuss among us
people named Thadeus are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 284,679 born in 2025 was named Thadeus
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Thadeus
- #10695
- Thadeus on the 2025 chart
- #626
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Thadeus went to 6 boys in 2025, but Thaddeus is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 320, which makes it the 626th most-given boys’ name of the year — 10,069 places above the chart.
- Thaddeus314
- Thadeus6
About 1 boy in 5,338 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 284,679 for Thadeus 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
Fashion outlook
Thadeus 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
Thadeus beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Thadeus in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Thad and Tad are two immediate short forms.
- The saint behind it has a well documented modern devotion.
- Three syllables with a firm opening beat.
- Thaddeus with two d is the standard spelling.
- Its meaning is genuinely unknown.
- The 1918 peak dates this form.
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Thadeus
Masculine · #10695 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Thadeuss are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 800 people named Thadeus are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Thadeus?
- Thadeus is one of 2 recorded spellings. Thaddeus is the more common one — 314 births in 2025 against 6 for Thadeus.
- How popular is the name Thadeus in 2025?
- Thadeus ranks #10695 among US boy names in 2025, with 6 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Thadeus?
- About 1 in every 284,679 US boys born in 2025 was named Thadeus — 6 in all.
- Will my child share the name Thadeus with classmates?
- Thadeus will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Thadeus
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
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Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Thadeus? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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