Name Awesome

Terese

Girls' name

Form of Theresa

Terese has been given to 6,503 babies in the U.S. since 1889. 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 1957, with 268 recorded.

Babies named Terese, 2020

1 in 418,000

Terese over time, 1880–2025

Girls
010020030018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Terese: meaning, origin, and history

Form of Theresa

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Terese means

Terese is a form of Theresa.

Documented naming usage and pronunciation

Terese is used in Basque, Swedish, Norwegian and Danish.

Another recorded pronunciation is /tɛ.ˈreːs/ for Terese.

Meaning behind the documented name family

The name developed through Terese → Theresa. The family’s proposed meaning is “summer”, recorded in the naming reference for Theresa.

Origin, language, and formation

Terese is used in Swedish.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Theresa.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 6,503 girls were recorded with the name Terese between 1889 and 2020. Its highest annual count was 268 in 1957; its best national rank was #570 in 1955.

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 Terese?

Terese had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2020, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2020
1 in 418,000
8 of 3,342,313 births
Among girls only
1 in 202,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2020
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
289,591 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Terese 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 2020 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 289,591 children born in 2020 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Terese. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Tereses were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Terese was born before 1960 — so the typical Terese is around 65 today.

Median birth year
1960
About 65 years old
Biggest decade
1950s
32.0% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
3.3%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
5,491
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1950s — 32.0% of all recorded uses (2,080).

Is Terese 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 1957 (268)
Years since peak
68
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
32.7% average annual change
Best rank ever
#570
1955

Spellings of Terese

Terese is not the most common spelling — Teresa is, with 43.5% against Terese's 0.68%.

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 Terese is used

Across 1910–2025, Terese was most concentrated in Minnesota — about 1 in 10,000 girls, against 1 in 30,512 across all states with data. It was least common in Texas (1 in —).

010 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Minnesota1 in 10,000
  2. 2Wisconsin1 in 10,000
  3. 3Illinois1 in 12,500
  4. 4Michigan1 in 16,667
  5. 5Massachusetts1 in 20,000
  6. 6New York1 in 25,000
  7. 7Ohio1 in 25,000
  8. 8California1 in 33,333

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

Terese around the world

Where Terese 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.

  • Ireland
    1964–1967
    #393
    in 1967
  • Norway
    1880–2005
    #445
    in 2005
  • Canada
    1998–1998
    #2,528
    in 1998
  • South Australia
    1946–2010
    #801
    in 2010

Popularity data from Central Statistics Office, Statistics Norway, Statistics Canada and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). CSO, SSB, CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0. StatCan data under Statistics Canada Open Licence.

Notable people named Terese

People whose public names include Terese, backed by Wikidata given-name records and ordered by linked Wikimedia pages. The name may be a middle name.

People data from Wikidata (CC0). Fame is measured, not judged — the order reflects how widely each person is documented, not the U.S. birth records popularity this page is otherwise about.

Terese in other languages

Cross-language forms and variants of Terese. Linked forms have their own page here.

TeresaTerezaTheresTeresiaTheresaThereseTeresitaTheresiaTêrêsaTeréziaThérèseTerezija

Variant forms from Wikidata (CC0). Most are used mainly outside the United States; U.S. birth records statistics cover US usage only.

Terese 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
#570
1955
Peak year
1957
268 that year
First recorded
1889
Last recorded
2020
All-time count
6,503
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Terese

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

TeressaTerraTerezaTeresitaTerrieTerrynTerinaTerriaTericaTerisaTeraTeriTerrellTerresaTerryTerrylTerrahTereasaTerricaTerahTerynTerikaAnnelieseTerran

Names with a curve like Terese

Not spelling — timing. These names rose, peaked and faded in the same years as Terese, so they read as being from the same moment even when they look nothing alike.

ValorieLaureenMaribethTeenaGeriRoxannRoxaneDonitaPamalaVikkiDeniceVickey

Sibling names for Terese

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 Terese

Top names of 1957, Terese's peak yearThe 1950s in fullOther names that peaked in 1955Girls' names starting with T