Teresa
- Pronunciation
- [Te-re-sa]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- Harvester
- Origin
- Italian
About the Name Teresa
Teresa is an Italian and Spanish form of Theresa, a name most likely derived from the Greek therízein ("to harvest") or from the island name Thera, yielding the sense of "harvester" — a meaning that resonated with agricultural societies and with the Christian virtue of patient, fruitful labour. The name gained enormous spiritual weight through Saint Teresa of Ávila, the sixteenth-century Spanish mystic and reformer of the Carmelite order, whose writings and canonisation ensured the name's prestige across Catholic Europe and its diaspora.
Teresa first entered the US Social Security top-1000 in 1948 and climbed to its peak of #18 in 1961, riding the same mid-century Catholic naming wave that lifted Theresa, Patricia, and similar saint-names to high national frequency. It has proved one of the most durable names in the modern record: Teresa remained in the top-1000 continuously through 2024, where it ranked #871 — a 76-year unbroken chart run that places it among the longest-lived names of its generation.
The name's resilience reflects both its religious associations and its melodic three-syllable structure, which ages gracefully from childhood through adulthood. Its rich variant family spans multiple languages and diminutive traditions: Teresita, Terri, Terrie, Terry, Tess, Tessa, Tessie, Tresa, and Tressa are all recorded forms.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Teresa
US Popularity History (1948–2025)
Annual US births named Teresa by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1961 with 18,909 girls named Teresa (girl rank #18 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #911 for girls (291 US births). That's 893 places below its 1961 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Where in the US Is Teresa Most Popular?
Average girl-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's girls-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Teresa the strongest states are Kansas, Connecticut, Nevada.
Strongest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kansas | #506 | 23 |
| 2 | Connecticut | #555 | 17 |
| 3 | Nevada | #563 | 17 |
| 4 | Maryland | #607 | 77 |
| 5 | Iowa | #607 | 17 |
| 6 | Oregon | #621 | 25 |
| 7 | California | #629 | 525 |
| 8 | Illinois | #697 | 144 |
| 9 | Missouri | #706 | 34 |
| 10 | Arizona | #710 | 69 |
Weakest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ohio | #984 | 54 |
| 2 | North Carolina | #929 | 63 |
| 3 | New York | #924 | 123 |
| 4 | Tennessee | #902 | 30 |
| 5 | South Carolina | #885 | 15 |
| 6 | Georgia | #884 | 56 |
| 7 | Michigan | #867 | 38 |
| 8 | Minnesota | #850 | 43 |
| 9 | Washington | #806 | 51 |
| 10 | Florida | #803 | 186 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Teresa in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Teresita | Variant Of Theresa Which Is A Popular Saint's Name Of Uncertain Meaning. | Female | Spanish |
| Terri | Abbreviation Of Teresa Which Is A Popular Saint's Name Of Uncertain Meaning. | Female | English |
| Terrie | Abbreviation Of Teresa Which Is A Popular Saint's Name Of Uncertain Meaning. | Female | English |
| Terry | Abbreviation Of Teresa Which Is A Popular Saint's Name Of Uncertain Meaning. | Female | English |
| Tess | Abbreviation Of Teresa Which Is A Popular Saint's Name Of Uncertain Meaning. | Female | English |
| Tessa | Born Fourth | Female | Greek |
| Tessie | Abbreviation Of Teresa Which Is A Popular Saint's Name Of Uncertain Meaning. | Female | English |
| Tresa | Variant Of Theresa Which Is A Popular Saint's Name Of Uncertain Meaning. | Female | German |
| Tressa | Variant Of Theresa. | Female | Italian |
Looking for names like Teresa?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Teresa to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Teresa against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
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