Teruko
Teruko was last recorded in 1981, when 8 babies were given it; 405 Americans have been recorded with it between 1913 and 1981 (Social Security Administration, published May 2026).
Girls and boys together; gaps are years SSA did not record (fewer than 5 births).
Births of Teruko by year: SSA national baby-name file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
What does Teruko mean?
Wiktionary, English section
Teruko is “a female given name from Japanese.”
Borrowed from Japanese てるこ (Teruko).
Meaning: Wiktionary, English section, as of Sep 25, 2026 (CC BY‑SA 4.0).
How popular is Teruko?
Unranked in 2025
Its last girls’ rank on record is #8,074, in 1981; SSA lists a name only in years with 5 or more births.
45 babies in 1927, the peak
Teruko peaked in 1927, when 45 girls were given it, #1,157 among girls’ names. It was not recorded in 2025.
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1981 | 8 | #8,074 | 4.8 |
| 1974 | 5 | #10,115 | 3.4 |
| 1973 | 8 | #6,608 | 5.5 |
| 1938 | 5 | #4,936 | 4.5 |
| 1937 | 6 | #4,210 | 5.6 |
| 1936 | 5 | #4,791 | 4.8 |
| 1934 | 6 | #4,238 | 5.7 |
| 1933 | 6 | #4,171 | 6.0 |
| 1932 | 13 | #2,477 | 12.2 |
| 1931 | 10 | #2,951 | 9.4 |
Every recorded year (28)
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1930 | 14 | #2,409 | 12.4 |
| 1929 | 17 | #2,090 | 15.2 |
| 1928 | 27 | #1,583 | 23.4 |
| 1927 | 45 | #1,157 | 37.7 |
| 1926 | 19 | #2,066 | 16.0 |
| 1925 | 18 | #2,182 | 14.8 |
| 1924 | 26 | #1,712 | 20.8 |
| 1923 | 23 | #1,830 | 19.1 |
| 1922 | 16 | #2,372 | 13.3 |
| 1921 | 17 | #2,274 | 13.8 |
| 1920 | 22 | #1,880 | 18.4 |
| 1919 | 22 | #1,796 | 19.5 |
| 1918 | 20 | #1,953 | 17.3 |
| 1917 | 7 | #4,040 | 6.5 |
| 1916 | 13 | #2,481 | 12.4 |
| 1915 | 10 | #2,876 | 10.2 |
| 1914 | 10 | #2,416 | 13.1 |
| 1913 | 7 | #2,785 | 11.2 |
Ranks and shares: girls’ names in each year’s SSA file; share of all girls SSA recorded that year.
Is Teruko a boy’s or a girl’s name?
Teruko has been recorded only for girls: SSA lists no boys with the name in 28 years of records (it lists a name only in years with 5 or more babies of a sex).
Girls and boys named Teruko: the SSA national file counts each sex separately.
How many people are named Teruko, and how old are they?
An estimated 36 Americans named Teruko and born in the U.S. are alive in 2026, too few to state an age range. An estimate from SSA’s births and life tables, not a count.
The 2020 Census counted 611 people named Teruko (606 women and girls, 5 men and boys). SSA’s births carried forward to Census day, April 1, 2020, predict 71 born in the U.S. The Census count is 8.6 times that prediction. Possible reasons: the Census counts people born abroad, whom SSA’s files leave out, and it records the name people give, which SSA may have recorded under another spelling or as part of a compound name.
Living estimate: SSA births carried forward with the survival rates in SSA’s cohort life tables (2024 Trustees Report) for each birth year and sex. How the estimate is made. Count: Census Bureau, first names in the 2020 Census (released April 14, 2026; names reported 100 or more times, with the Bureau’s disclosure-avoidance adjustment).
Where are babies named Teruko born?
| State | Since 1910 | Rank, girls | vs. national |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hawaii | 141 | not ranked | 82.5× |
| California | 133 | not ranked | 9.4× |
Where Teruko is more common than its national share predicts
Relative to its national share, Teruko is most over-represented in Hawaii: since 1913 it was given 82.5 times as often there as its national share each year would predict.
States: SSA state file, 1910-2025, published May 8, 2026; births count girls and boys together, and the rank is among girls’ names in the state in 2025. The file leaves out any state and year with fewer than 5 babies of the name, so small states are undercounted; each ratio compares the state’s births of Teruko with the births its national share predicts year by year, for states with at least 100 births of the name.
Names spelled alike
Of these 3 names spelled alike, given to 1,150 babies since 1880, Teruko is the second most given (35% of them).
Spelled alike: names in the SSA national file with the same pattern of letters and sounds and at most two letters apart, and Wiktionary’s listed forms; births since 1880 and in 2025, and each name’s peak year, from the SSA national file, published May 8, 2026. Some are separate names, not spellings of one.
Names that rose and fell in the same decades as Teruko
Names whose births rose and fell across the same decades, measured on each decade’s share of births.
Similar histories: each decade’s share of births, from the SSA national file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
More about Teruko and names like it
- Compare Teruko and TerikaBirths, ranks, peak and the living estimate side by side.
- The most given names of the 1920sTeruko peaked in 1927.
- Hawaii’s most given namesThe state where SSA recorded the most babies named Teruko since 1910.
- Japanese namesWiktionary’s origin for Teruko: every such name, by how often it is given.
- The top names of 1927The year the most babies were named Teruko.
- Names starting with TMost given first.