Name Awesome

Thales

Boys' name

To blossom

Thales has been given to 93 babies in the U.S. since 1917. 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 2009, with 17 recorded.

Babies named Thales, 2020

1 in 557,000

Thales over time, 1880–2025

Boys
0510152018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Thales: meaning, origin, and history

To blossom

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Thales means

Thales means “to blossom”.

Documented naming usage and pronunciation

Thales is used in Ancient Greek and Portuguese (Brazilian).

Another recorded pronunciation is /tʰa.lɛ̂ːs/, /ˈθeɪ.liːz/ and /ˈta.liʒ/ for Thales.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 93 boys were recorded with the name Thales between 1917 and 2020. Its highest annual count was 17 in 2009; its best national rank was #4,516 in 1917.

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 Thales?

Thales 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 557,000
6 of 3,342,313 births
Among boys only
1 in 288,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2020
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
386,120 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Thales sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Liam (20,818)

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 386,120 children born in 2020 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Thales. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Thaless were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Thales was born before 2011 — so the typical Thales is around 14 today.

Median birth year
2011
About 14 years old
Biggest decade
2010s
57.0% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
94.6%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
88
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

2010s — 57.0% of all recorded uses (53).

Is Thales 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 2009 (17)
Years since peak
16
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
37.5% average annual change
Best rank ever
#4,516
1917

Spellings of Thales

Thales is not the most common spelling — Charles is, with 98.6% against Thales'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 Thales is used

Across 1910–2025, Thales was most concentrated in Tennessee — about 1 in — boys, against 1 in 737,056 across all states with data.

00 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Tennessee1 in —

Shading is the share of that state's recorded boys 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. Thales has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Thales around the world

Where Thales 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
    2016–2016
    #5,709
    in 2016
  • Canada
    2017–2017
    #2,944
    in 2017

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

Thales by the numbers

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

As a boy's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#4,516
1917
Peak year
2009
17 that year
First recorded
1917
Last recorded
2020
All-time count
93
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Thales

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

ThadeoThamasTharunThanosThaxtonThadenThaineTharenThaddusThanielThailandThaisonThawngThaoThadisThaerThaddThailanThaydenThayerThaynePericlesThamanThang

Sibling names for Thales

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 Thales

Top names of 2009, Thales's peak yearThe 2000s in fullOther names that peaked in 1917Boys' names starting with T