Theodore
- Pronunciation
- [Thee-ah-dore]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Gracious Gift
- Origin
- Greek
About the Name Theodore
Theodore is the English form of the Greek Theodoros, a compound of theos (god) and doron (gift) — literally "gift of God." It entered the Christian onomastic register early through several Byzantine and Roman saints, including the 4th-century St. Theodore of Tyre (a Roman soldier-martyr) and the 7th-century Theodore of Tarsus, who served as Archbishop of Canterbury and reorganized the early English church.
For most of subsequent English-speaking history Theodore was used but never dominant. It had a notable late-19th-century run in the United States, partly riding the immense cultural footprint of Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th US president — whose nickname Teddy is the origin of the teddy bear. Children's-author Theodore Geisel (Dr. Seuss) and Pulitzer-winning poet Theodore Roethke kept the name in the educated-American canon through the mid-20th century, even as it faded from broad use.
Theodore's recent ascent — climbing more than 250 ranks since 2010 to enter the modern US top 5 boys' names — is part of the broader vintage-revival movement that also lifted Henry, Oliver, and Arthur. The name reads simultaneously as old-fashioned and freshly preppy: serious enough for a CEO, soft enough for a toddler. Most parents use one of three nicknames, each with its own register: Teddy (warm, child-friendly), Ted (compact, mid-century), or Theo (modern, slightly literary). International cousins include Russian Fyodor (which gives Dostoyevsky), Spanish Teodoro, French Théodore, and Italian Teodoro.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Theodore
US Popularity History (1880–2025)
Annual US births named Theodore by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2025 with 13,355 boys named Theodore (boy rank #4 that year).
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 Theodore 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 Theodore the strongest states are Minnesota, District of Columbia, Wisconsin.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Minnesota | #4 | 2,651 |
| 2 | District of Columbia | #8 | 460 |
| 3 | Wisconsin | #10 | 2,203 |
| 4 | Iowa | #11 | 1,199 |
| 5 | Oregon | #12 | 1,317 |
| 6 | Vermont | #12 | 220 |
| 7 | New Hampshire | #13 | 578 |
| 8 | Nebraska | #13 | 788 |
| 9 | Colorado | #13 | 2,090 |
| 10 | Washington | #13 | 2,608 |
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mississippi | #247 | 173 |
| 2 | Alabama | #124 | 575 |
| 3 | Louisiana | #88 | 636 |
| 4 | Texas | #83 | 4,783 |
| 5 | West Virginia | #82 | 288 |
| 6 | New Mexico | #82 | 270 |
| 7 | Georgia | #76 | 1,620 |
| 8 | Arkansas | #76 | 478 |
| 9 | Florida | #70 | 3,148 |
| 10 | South Carolina | #69 | 793 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Theodore in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
Famous People Named Theodore
3 notable figures from history and culture who share the name Theodore.
- Theodore Hesburgh is a priest of the Congregation of Holy Cross and the President Emeritus of the University of Notre Dame.
- Theodore Roethke was a Pulitzer Prize winning American Poet.
- Theodore Roosevelt — US President (1858)
Looking for names like Theodore?
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 Theodore to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Theodore against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
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