Tollie
Masculine
Tollie is given to both — 566 boys and 40 girls since 1880. See other names given to both
Tollie is an old Southern pet name, most likely from Tolliver, a surname with one of the strangest spellings in America. It is two soft syllables, warm and unhurried.
How old is the name Tollie?
Tollie first appears in US birth records in 1884 — 141 years ago. The typical Tollie alive today was born around 1929, making them about 96 years old. About 200 people named Tollie are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Tollie most popular?
Tollie peaked in 1886, reaching #694 nationally. See the whole 1886 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Tagliaferro to Tollie
The story of Tollie
The Taliaferro family came to Virginia from an Italian name, Tagliaferro, iron-cutter, and in the mouths of Virginians it became Tolliver, which is how the family still says it, though the old spelling stayed on paper. Tolliver was taken up as a first name in the South, and Tollie was its pet form, given to boys and occasionally to girls. Tolly was also an old English short form of Bartholomew, so the name may have come by that road too.
Meaningscholars disagree
a pet form of Tolliver or Bartholomew
Tollie may shorten Tolliver, the spoken form of the Italian surname Taliaferro, iron-cutter, or Tolly, a pet form of Bartholomew. The record does not say which.
How the name formed
- Tagliaferro
- Taliaferro / Tolliver
- Tollie
Related forms: Tagliaferro
Pronouncing Tollie
TAH-lee
Two syllables, stressed on the first.
Nicknames for Tollie
Limited
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
- 1884
- Most boys named
- 192720 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #694reached in 1886
- Change vs 1980
- +33.3%8 in 1984, from 6
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.
Tollie in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Tagliaferro in Italian — related form
Tollies among us
people named Tollie 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
Tollie 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 has a warm, old Southern sound.
- It connects to a real Virginia family history.
- It is almost never given now, so it is distinctive.
- It reads as a nickname, and some will ask for the full name.
- A very few girls have been given it; for them it will read as a boy's name.
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Tollie
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Tollies 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 Tollie are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Tollie in 2025?
- Tollie is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Tollie with classmates?
- Tollie 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 Tollie? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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