Thu
Feminine · “Autumn”
Thu is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 832 girls against 5 boys since 1880.
Thu is the Vietnamese word for autumn, and autumn in Vietnamese poetry is not a decline but the clearest and most temperate part of the year — the season writers reach for when they want stillness.
How old is the name Thu?
Thu first appears in US birth records in 1975 — 50 years ago. The typical Thu alive today was born around 1988, making them about 37 years old. About 800 people named Thu are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Thu most popular?
Thu peaked in 1983, reaching #1887 nationally. See the whole 1983 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
The story of Thu
Season names are ordinary given names in Vietnamese, and autumn is the one that appears most. It is the mild interval between the monsoon and the cold in the north, associated in classical verse with clear light, with the moon, and with the mid-autumn festival that is one of the largest holidays of the year. The associations are settled enough that a reader encountering the word in a poem expects a particular register — quiet, lucid, a little reflective — which is a good deal more than most single-word names carry with them.
Meaning
Autumn
One of the four season words, used as a given name and as part of longer compounds. In Vietnamese the word carries a diacritic that American records cannot store, so the written name here is the word with its marking removed.
Pronouncing Thu
too
One syllable. The Vietnamese initial is closer to a t than to the English th, and the word carries a tone that English cannot write.
Nicknames for Thu
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
- 1975
- Most girls named
- 198355 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1887reached in 1983
- Change vs 2017
- +20.0%12 in 2018, from 10
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.
Thu in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Thu in Vietnamese — same name
Thus among us
people named Thu 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
Thu 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 one syllable and impossible to shorten or mangle.
- The meaning is settled, concrete and pleasant.
- It is written the same way in both languages.
- English speakers will say the th as in thin, which is wrong.
- The tone that completes the word cannot be written in American records.
- The spelling is recorded for both sexes.
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Thu
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Thus 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 Thu are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Thu in 2025?
- Thu is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Thu with classmates?
- Thu 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 Thu? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Thu and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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