Tempe
Girls' nameMeaning not yet documented
Tempe has been given to 44 babies in the U.S. since 1941. 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 1961, with 8 recorded.
Babies named Tempe, 1979
1 in 665,000
Tempe over time, 1880–2025
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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.
How common is Tempe?
Tempe had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1979, the last year it was published.
- Among all babies, 1979
- 1 in 665,000
- 5 of 3,326,731 births
- Among girls only
- 1 in 321,000
- <0.01% of girls
- Rank, 1979
- Unranked
- Fewer than 5 uses
- Coin-flip room size
- 461,184 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Tempe sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 1979 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 461,184 children born in 1979 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Tempe. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Tempes were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Tempe was born before 1962 — so the typical Tempe is around 63 today.
- Biggest decade
- 1960s
- 43.2% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 77.3%
- A modern name
- Recorded since 1950
- 34
- People you could plausibly meet
1960s — 43.2% of all recorded uses (19).
Is Tempe 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 1961 (8)
- Years since peak
- 64
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Volatile
- 37.5% average annual change
Spellings of Tempe
Tempe is not the most common spelling — Emme is, with 26.7% against Tempe's 0.32%.
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.
Tempe around the world
Where Tempe 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.
- South Australia1957–1959#625in 1959
Popularity data from Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.
Tempe by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
Names similar to Tempe
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Tempe
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.