Thelma
Thelma is outside the top 1,000 in 2024, with 32 births. Its best rank was 25th, in 1910.
- Rank in 2024
- —outside the top 1,000
- Births in 2024
- 320.00% of girls
- Peak year
- 19217,839 births
- Best rank
- #25in 1910
- Since 1880
- 226,571people given the name
The story in the numbers
225,429 girls have been named Thelma in the United States since 1880, according to Social Security records. The busiest single year was 1921, with 7,839 births — 0.64% of all girls recorded that year.
The name has all but left use: 32 births in 2024, against 7,839 at the peak.
Half of everyone given the name was born by 1924, and the 1920s alone account for 31%. It has spent 99 of 145 years in the top 1,000, 42 of them in the top 100.
It is overwhelmingly a girl’s name: 1,142 boys have also been given it, 0.50% of the total.
Rank among girls, year by year
By decade
| Decade | girls named Thelma | |
|---|---|---|
| 1880s | 76 | |
| 1890s | 2,385 | |
| 1900s | 18,265 | |
| 1910s | 57,011 | |
| 1920s | 68,767 | |
| 1930s | 36,254 | |
| 1940s | 20,229 | |
| 1950s | 11,775 | |
| 1960s | 5,895 | |
| 1970s | 2,158 | |
| 1980s | 1,170 | |
| 1990s | 687 | |
| 2000s | 379 | |
| 2010s | 239 | |
| 2020s | 139 |
In 1921, its biggest year
Thelma was the 30th most given girl’s name that year. The top five girls’ names of 1921 were Mary, Dorothy, Helen, Margaret and Ruth. See all of 1921.
Names that rose and fell with Thelma
Same sex, most similar popularity curve over 145 years, in five-year steps — the shape of the line, not the size.
- Irinepeak 1922
- Maurinepeak 1917
- Mozellpeak 1925
- Izolapeak 1923
- Rubyepeak 1919
- Ardathpeak 1923
- Loreanpeak 1920
- Velmapeak 1921
What this page does not tell you. The Social Security data records how many babies were given a name, not what the name means or where it comes from — so neither do we. Counts cover people with a Social Security number; names given to fewer than five babies in a year are withheld. More on the data.