Thelma — #4373 US girls' name

What the Data Says About Thelma

The Social Security Administration has registered 225,429 babies named Thelma between 1880 and 2024, spanning 145 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a girl's name, Thelma currently holds the #4373 rank among girls for 2024. The name reached its historical peak in 1921, when 7,839 babies received it in a single year.

Decade-level aggregation shows that Thelma performed strongest in the 1920s, accumulating 68,767 births during that ten-year window. Across the 15 decades of recorded activity, Thelma shows a clear decline from its mid-century high. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in Pennsylvania, which accounts for 13,530 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by Texas and North Carolina. In total, SSA state-level files list Thelma in 51 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for Thelma in our reference dataset. These figures derive from SSA's annual national and state-level name files, which include any name appearing at least five times in a given year or state-year; names below that threshold are suppressed for privacy and therefore excluded from the totals shown here. The 225,429 total represents a lower bound — actual usage may be higher in years or states where the count fell below the disclosure floor. This page is provided for informational and research purposes only and does not constitute personal, legal, or naming advice.