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Tecla

Girls' name

Form of Thekla

Tecla has been given to 135 babies in the U.S. since 1907. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 1916, with 11 recorded.

Babies named Tecla, 1970

1 in 721,000

Tecla over time, 1880–2025

Girls
05101518801900192019401960198020002020

Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Tecla: meaning, origin, and history

Form of Thekla

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Tecla means

Tecla is a form of Thekla.

Documented naming usage and pronunciation

Tecla is used in Italian and Spanish (Rare).

Another recorded pronunciation is /ˈtɛ.kla/ and /ˈte.kla/ for Tecla.

Meaning behind the documented name family

The name developed through Tecla → Thekla. The family’s meaning is “glory of God”, recorded in the naming reference for Thekla.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Thekla.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 135 girls were recorded with the name Tecla between 1907 and 1970. Its highest annual count was 11 in 1916; its best national rank was #2,356 in 1907.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning, origin, and language notes draw on the references below.

American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling. Counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted.

How common is Tecla?

Tecla had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1970, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 1970
1 in 721,000
5 of 3,606,302 births
Among girls only
1 in 350,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 1970
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
499,941 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Tecla sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Olivia (13,544)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 1970 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 499,941 children born in 1970 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Tecla. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Teclas were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Tecla was born before 1921 — so the typical Tecla is around 104 today.

Median birth year
1921
About 104 years old
Biggest decade
1910s
35.6% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
20.0%
Spread across generations
Recorded since 1950
12
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1910s — 35.6% of all recorded uses (48).

Is Tecla rising or falling?

Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.

Rank vs 1 year ago
—
Not ranked then
Rank vs 5 years ago
New entry
Not ranked then
Rank vs 10 years ago
—
Not ranked then
Births vs 10 years ago
—
Not published both years
Share of its own peak
0%
Peak was 1916 (11)
Years since peak
109
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Shifting
18.8% average annual change
Best rank ever
#2,356
1907

Spellings of Tecla

Tecla is not the most common spelling — Ella is, with 30.0% against Tecla's 0.01%.

Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.

Where Tecla is used

Across 1910–2025, Tecla was most concentrated in New York — about 1 in — girls, against 1 in 2,084,400 across all states with data.

00 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1New York1 in —

Shading is the share of that state's recorded girls given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings. Tecla has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Tecla around the world

Where Tecla ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.

  • France
    1925–2008
    #5,603
    in 2008

Popularity data from Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0.

Tecla by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#2,356
1907
Peak year
1916
11 that year
First recorded
1907
Last recorded
1970
All-time count
135
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Tecla

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

TeciaTecoraTecklaTheclaTecoaTecola

Sibling names for Tecla

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Tecla

Top names of 1916, Tecla's peak yearThe 1910s in fullOther names that peaked in 1907Girls' names starting with T