Thelma
Masculine · “Will”
Thelma is given to girls far more often — 225,460 girls against 1,142 boys since 1880. See Thelma as a girl name
Thelma begins with a th that the Greek word behind it would write with a single letter. Theta is one character in Greek and English needs two for it, which is why so many names of Greek descent carry a consonant pair that looks decorative and is doing real work.
How old is the name Thelma?
Thelma first appears in US birth records in 1896 — 129 years ago. The typical Thelma alive today was born around 1925, making them about 100 years old. About 200 people named Thelma are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Thelma most popular?
Thelma peaked in 1906, reaching #709 nationally. See the whole 1906 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From thelema to Thelma
The story of Thelma
The novelist who made it outsold every rival of her generation and is now unread. Marie Corelli published romances of enormous popularity from the eighteen-eighties onward, selling more than Conan Doyle, Wells and Kipling put together at her height, and was read by two prime ministers and a queen; she also refused to send review copies to critics, on the grounds that they were incapable of understanding her, and reviewed her own reception in prefaces. The books were dismissed as vulgar by the literary world at the time and have almost entirely disappeared since. What survives of her is the names: this one, and one or two others, given to hundreds of thousands of children by people who had read her.
Meaningscholars disagree
Will, wish
Usually connected to the Greek thelema, will or volition, and the connection is a reading rather than a documented derivation, since the name was invented by a novelist who did not explain herself. If she took the Greek word, the name means something like the thing willed; if she made a sound she liked, it means nothing.
How the name formed
- thelema
- Thelma
Pronouncing Thelma
THEL-muh
Two syllables with the stress at the front. The th is the unvoiced one, as in thin, and the l after it is a cluster English handles easily at the start of a syllable but not at the end of one.
Nicknames for Thelma
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
- 1896
- Most boys named
- 192445 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #709reached in 1906
- Change vs 1963
- −28.6%5 in 1969, from 7
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.
Thelmas among us
people named Thelma 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
Thelma 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
- Short, firm and completely unambiguous in spelling and sound.
- It has a documented author and a documented decade, which most names cannot offer.
- It is genuinely uncommon now while being entirely familiar.
- The record carries it for boys in small numbers, so it is not quite an absolute signal.
- It is very strongly dated to the first decades of the last century in American ears.
- One film has attached the name firmly to a particular story since the nineteen-nineties.
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What they receive
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Thelma
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Thelmas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 200 people named Thelma are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Thelma in 2025?
- Thelma is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Thelma with classmates?
- Thelma will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More T names
The most-given names starting with T, all years combined.
Thomas#34 · Timothy#203 · Tyler#219 · Terry#1115 · Theodore#4 · Travis#434 · Todd#1609 · Tony#783
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Thelma? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Thelma and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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