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Telma

#13,064 in 2025Girls' name

Form of Thelma

Telma has been given to 276 babies in the U.S. since 1915. In 2025 it ranked #13,064 of 17,293 girls’ names in use. Its peak year was 1976, with 13 recorded.

Babies named Telma, 2025

1 in 474,000

Telma 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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Telma: meaning, origin, and history

Form of Thelma

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Telma means

Telma is a form of Thelma.

Documented naming usage and pronunciation

Telma is used in Portuguese.

Origin, language, and formation

Telma is used in Icelandic.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Thelma.

Pronunciation and spelling

In Icelandic, Telma is pronounced [ˈtʰɛlma].

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 276 girls were recorded with the name Telma between 1915 and 2025. Its highest annual count was 13 in 1976; its best national rank was #4,875 in 1976.

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.

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

How common is Telma?

Everything below is computed from the 2025 data — the most recent year available.

Among all babies, 2025
1 in 474,000
7 of 3,315,165 births
Among girls only
1 in 230,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2025
#13,064
of 17,293 girls’ names in use
Coin-flip room size
328,272 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Telma 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 2025 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 328,272 children born in 2025 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Telma. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Telmas were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Telma was born before 1980 — so the typical Telma is around 45 today.

Median birth year
1980
About 45 years old
Biggest decade
1970s
25.4% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
13.4%
Spread across generations
Recorded since 1950
266
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1970s — 25.4% of all recorded uses (70).

Is Telma 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
+2,013
Places climbed
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
53.8%
Peak was 1976 (13)
Years since peak
49
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
29.5% average annual change
Best rank ever
#4,875
1976

Spellings of Telma

Telma is not the most common spelling — Emma is, with 26.8% against Telma'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 Telma is used

Across 1910–2025, Telma was most concentrated in Texas — about 1 in — girls, against 1 in 2,046,820 across all states with data.

00 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Texas1 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. Telma has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Telma around the world

Where Telma 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
    1973–2025
    #1,234
    in 2025
  • South Australia
    1964–1964
    #653
    in 1964

Popularity data from Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Telma by the numbers

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

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
#13,064
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
New entry
Best rank ever
#4,875
1976
Peak year
1976
13 that year
First recorded
1915
Last recorded
2025
All-time count
276
Count in 2025
7

Names similar to Telma

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

TeliaTelinaTelenaIlmaTellyTelsaTeleahTelaniGilmaTalmaValmaWelmaTellaSulmaTelaTelesaTeliyahTelithaZulmaTeleciaWylmaTeliahHelmaTelicia

Sibling names for Telma

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 Telma

Top names of 1976, Telma's peak yearThe 1970s in fullOther names that peaked in 1976Girls' names starting with T