Thersa
Feminine
Thersa is Theresa with a vowel gone, and the letter that stayed is the interesting one. Spain and Italy spell this name without an h; England, Germany and France put one in. The h is a northern European addition to a name that came out of Iberia, and it has been quietly dividing the spelling of it for four hundred years.
How old is the name Thersa?
Thersa first appears in US birth records in 1908 — 117 years ago. The typical Thersa alive today was born around 1962, making them about 63 years old. About 800 people named Thersa are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Thersa most popular?
Thersa peaked in 1965, reaching #1672 nationally. See the whole 1965 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From a name of unknown meaning appearing first in Iberia to Thersa
The story of Thersa
The h is a piece of learned tidying-up. Northern European scholars writing in Latin liked to mark names they believed to be Greek by inserting an h, on the model of theos and Theodore, and Teresa was assumed to be Greek because most old names were. Spanish and Italian, which had the name first and knew it as an ordinary local one, never bothered. So the spelling now tells you which half of Europe a family's version came through rather than anything about the name itself, and this American form — with the h kept and a vowel dropped — belongs firmly to the northern line.
Meaningnot established
Not established
Nobody knows what Teresa means. Three explanations are in circulation — a Greek word for summer, a Greek verb about harvesting, and the name of a small island near Santorini — and none of them can be shown to be right. The name appears first in Spain and Portugal, which is unusual: almost every other major European name arrived from Rome, Jerusalem or the north, and this one seems to have started at the western edge and worked inwards.
How the name formed
- a name of unknown meaning appearing first in Iberia
- Teresa spreads across Catholic Europe
- northern Europe inserts an h on the assumption it is Greek
- Theresa established in English use
- Thersa appears in American records in the 1900s
Related forms: Teresa · Therese · Theresia · Teresa
Pronouncing Thersa
tuh-REE-suh
Three syllables with the weight in the middle, and the th is said as a plain t in every version of this name. The missing vowel is the unstressed one, which had almost disappeared from speech long before anyone stopped writing it.
Nicknames for Thersa
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
- 1908
- Most girls named
- 196545 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1672reached in 1965
- Change vs 1990
- −14.3%6 in 2001, 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.
Thersa in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Teresa in Spanish — spelling variant
- Therese in French — same name
- Theresia in German — same name
- Teresa in Polish — same name
Thersas among us
people named Thersa 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
Thersa 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
- The sound is completely established across Europe and the Americas.
- Tess and Terry are both available and belong to different generations.
- The spelling is genuinely rare while the name is universal.
- Theresa and Teresa are both far commoner and the missing letter will be restored constantly.
- There is no established meaning, and the ones offered are guesses.
- The spelling reads as an error to most people who meet it.
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Thersa
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Thersas 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 Thersa are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Thersa in 2025?
- Thersa is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Thersa with classmates?
- Thersa 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 Thersa? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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