Terrance
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Roman Clan Name.
- Origin
- English
About the Name Terrance
Terrance is an English variant spelling of Terence, a name rooted in the ancient Roman family name Terentius — one of the great Republican-era gentes, or clan names, of Latin Rome. The name's deeper etymology is uncertain; it may derive from an Etruscan or Oscan root absorbed into the Roman naming system before Latin records were comprehensive enough to trace it precisely. What is clear is that the name's prestige was cemented by the second-century BCE playwright Publius Terentius Afer, known simply as Terence, whose six surviving comedies became staples of Latin literary education for two millennia and ensured that the name would carry a lasting association with wit, refinement, and classical learning.
Terrance entered the US Social Security top-1000 in 2000 at its peak rank of #402 and maintained a place in the rankings through 2020, giving it a twenty-year presence on the chart. In that final charted year it ranked #967 with 225 boys. Across its run, more than 9,400 boys were named Terrance within the SSA top-1000 era. The name occupies a familiar but underused niche — recognizable to every American ear, it nevertheless carries less competition than the more dominant Terrence spelling. Variants include Tarrence and Terrence, the latter being the more common alternate form in the English-speaking world.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Terrance
US Popularity History (2000–2020)
Annual US births named Terrance by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2000 with 628 boys named Terrance (boy rank #402 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2020, ranked #967 for boys (225 US births). That's 565 places below its 2000 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 Terrance Most Popular?
Average boy-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 boys-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Terrance the strongest states are Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mississippi | #447 | 62 |
| 2 | Louisiana | #487 | 97 |
| 3 | South Carolina | #520 | 72 |
| 4 | Arkansas | #544 | 18 |
| 5 | Alabama | #604 | 60 |
| 6 | Michigan | #641 | 92 |
| 7 | Tennessee | #646 | 52 |
| 8 | Georgia | #714 | 96 |
| 9 | Wisconsin | #736 | 33 |
| 10 | Florida | #759 | 146 |
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Texas | #957 | 149 |
| 2 | Maryland | #902 | 15 |
| 3 | Indiana | #885 | 19 |
| 4 | Virginia | #835 | 30 |
| 5 | Ohio | #835 | 64 |
| 6 | North Carolina | #829 | 39 |
| 7 | Missouri | #800 | 33 |
| 8 | Illinois | #781 | 91 |
| 9 | Pennsylvania | #771 | 31 |
| 10 | Florida | #759 | 146 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Terrance in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
Looking for names like Terrance?
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 Terrance to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Terrance against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).