Name Awesome

Thecla

Girls' name

God + glory

Thecla has been given to 281 babies in the U.S. since 1888. 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 1917, with 18 recorded.

Babies named Thecla, 1986

1 in 711,000

Thecla over time, 1880–2025

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Thecla: meaning, origin, and history

God + glory

Ancient Greek

What Thecla means

Thecla means “god + glory”, associated with θεός and κλέος.

Dictionary etymologyReferences, data & attribution

From the name of an apocryphal early Christian martyr, Ancient Greek Θεοκλεία (Theokleía), (from θεός (theós, “god”) + κλέος (kléos, “glory”)).

Excerpt from Wiktionary: Thecla (English) · CC BY-SA 4.0

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Origin, language, and formation

Thecla is used in English. Its origins include Ancient Greek.

Thecla comes through Ancient Greek Θεοκλεία.

Pronunciation and spelling

In English, Thecla is pronounced /θɛklə/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 281 girls were recorded with the name Thecla between 1888 and 1986. Its highest annual count was 18 in 1917; its best national rank was #1,416 in 1895.

How common is Thecla?

Thecla had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1986, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 1986
1 in 711,000
5 of 3,556,724 births
Among girls only
1 in 343,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 1986
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
493,068 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Thecla 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 1986 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 493,068 children born in 1986 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Thecla. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Theclas were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Thecla was born before 1919 — so the typical Thecla is around 106 today.

Median birth year
1919
About 106 years old
Biggest decade
1910s
34.2% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
3.9%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
34
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1910s — 34.2% of all recorded uses (96).

Is Thecla 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 1917 (18)
Years since peak
108
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
37.2% average annual change
Best rank ever
#1,416
1895

Spellings of Thecla

Thecla is not the most common spelling — Sheila is, with 46.7% against Thecla's 0.05%.

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 Thecla is used

Across 1910–2025, Thecla was most concentrated in New York — about 1 in — girls, against 1 in 2,501,280 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. Thecla has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Thecla around the world

Where Thecla 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.

  • England & Wales
    2025–2025
    #5,927
    in 2025
  • France
    1903–1934
    #1,154
    in 1934
  • South Australia
    1953–1953
    #449
    in 1953

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics, Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Thecla 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
#1,416
1895
Peak year
1917
18 that year
First recorded
1888
Last recorded
1986
All-time count
281
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Thecla

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

TheonaTheoryThenaTheklaTheoneTheoriTheldaThetisThermaTheiaTherisaThetaTheoraTheliaThersaTherasaTheodoreThereseaTherseaThemisThereasaThedoraThellaThera

Sibling names for Thecla

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 Thecla

Top names of 1917, Thecla's peak yearThe 1910s in fullOther names that peaked in 1895Girls' names starting with T