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Thekla

Girls' name

Glory of God

Thekla has been given to 296 babies in the U.S. since 1882. 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 1890, with 14 recorded.

Babies named Thekla, 2021

1 in 565,000

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Thekla: meaning, origin, and history

Glory of God

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Thekla means

Thekla means “glory of God”.

Documented naming usage and pronunciation

Thekla is used in German (Rare), Greek (Rare) and Late Greek.

Origin, language, and formation

Thekla is used in German.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Thecla.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 296 girls were recorded with the name Thekla between 1882 and 2021. Its highest annual count was 14 in 1890; its best national rank was #755 in 1890.

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 Thekla?

Thekla had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2021, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2021
1 in 565,000
6 of 3,389,958 births
Among girls only
1 in 273,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2021
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
391,624 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Thekla 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 2021 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 391,624 children born in 2021 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Thekla. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Theklas were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Thekla was born before 1902 — so the typical Thekla is around 123 today.

Median birth year
1902
About 123 years old
Biggest decade
1890s
26.7% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
2.0%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
17
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1890s — 26.7% of all recorded uses (79).

Is Thekla 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 1890 (14)
Years since peak
135
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
30.2% average annual change
Best rank ever
#755
1890

Spellings of Thekla

Thekla is not the most common spelling — Sheila is, with 46.8% against Thekla's 0.06%.

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 Thekla is used

Across 1910–2025, Thekla was most concentrated in Texas — about 1 in — girls, against 1 in 2,456,184 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. Thekla has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Thekla around the world

Where Thekla 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
    1902–1916
    #790
    in 1916
  • South Australia
    1956–1988
    #657
    in 1988

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.

Thekla 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
#755
1890
Peak year
1890
14 that year
First recorded
1882
Last recorded
2021
All-time count
296
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Thekla

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

ThecklaTheonaTheoryThenaTheoneTheclaTheoriTheldaThetisTheiaTherisaThermaThetaTheoraTheliaThersaTheodoreTherasaTecklaThereseaTherseaThereasaThemisThedora

Sibling names for Thekla

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 Thekla

Top names of 1890, Thekla's peak yearThe 1890s in fullOther names that peaked in 1890Girls' names starting with T