Tory
Feminine · “Victory”
Tory is given to both — 3,926 girls and 6,990 boys since 1880. See Tory as a boy nameSee other names given to both
Tory is a short form of Victoria and, quite separately, an English political word that came from Irish: tóraí meant a pursuer or an outlaw, and it was an insult before it was a party. The girls' name and the politics have nothing to do with each other.
How old is the name Tory?
Tory first appears in US birth records in 1948 — 77 years ago. The typical Tory alive today was born around 1991, making them about 34 years old. About 3,800 people named Tory are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Tory most popular?
Tory peaked in 1977, reaching #832 nationally. Today it ranks #5554, 4,722 places below that high. See the whole 1977 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From victoria to Tory
The story of Tory
Victoria was a Roman name and a rare English one until the queen's sixty-three-year reign made it ordinary; American use rose sharply from the 1940s and peaked in the 1980s. Tory, Tori and Torie are its short forms, and they had lives of their own from the 1960s onward. Tory's American peak in 1977 sits inside the parent name's rise. The political sense has kept the spelling faintly awkward in Britain, where a Tory is a Conservative, and it is the main reason the Tori spelling has done better in the English-speaking world since.
Meaningscholars disagree
Victory, if from Victoria
As a short form of Victoria the name carries Latin victoria, victory, which is settled. The political word is a separate borrowing from Irish tóraí, a pursuer or robber, applied as an abuse term to Irish dispossessed and then to a English political faction in 1679. The two share a spelling and nothing else, and the American girls' name belongs to the first.
How the name formed
- victoria
- Victoria
- Tory
Related forms: Victoria · Tori · Vittoria
Pronouncing Tory
TOR-ee
Two syllables, stress on the first. The Tory, Tori and Torie spellings are identical in speech.
Nicknames for Tory
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
- 1948
- Most girls named
- 1977180 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #832reached in 1977
- Change vs 2023
- +57.1%22 in 2025, from 14
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.
Tory in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Victoria in Latin — related form
- Tori in English — spelling variant
- Vittoria in Italian — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Missouri, Texas.
Torys among us
people named Tory are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 73,058 born in 2025 was named Tory
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Tory
- #5554
- Tory on the 2025 chart
- #766
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Tory went to 22 girls in 2025, but Tori and Torri are the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 194, which makes it the 766th most-given girls’ name of the year — 4,788 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 8,285 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 73,058 for Tory 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
The Maurice test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Tory's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Maurice climbed just as high around 1915, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Maurice's path sketches the road Tory is walking now.
Tory 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
Tory beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Tory in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Victoria stands behind it as a formal name of the first rank.
- Everyone can say and spell it after one hearing.
- Four letters and two syllables keep it compact.
- In Britain a Tory is a Conservative, which is a strong association.
- Tori is the commoner spelling and will be written for it.
- It reads as a nickname, and people will ask what it is short for.
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Tory
Feminine · #5554 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Torys are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 3,800 people named Tory are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Tory?
- Tory is one of 3 recorded spellings. Tori is the more common one — 167 births in 2025 against 22 for Tory.
- How popular is the name Tory in 2025?
- Tory ranks #5554 among US girl names in 2025, with 22 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Tory?
- About 1 in every 73,058 US girls born in 2025 was named Tory — 22 in all.
- Will my child share the name Tory with classmates?
- Tory will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Tory
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Eda#5554 · Phebe#5554 · Felicia#5554 · Audie#5554 · Maryellen#5554 · Warren#5554 · Ruthann#5554 · Nettie#5554
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Tory? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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