Name Awesome

Tilly

#885 in 2025Girls' name

Strength + battle, fight, through Matilda

Tilly has been given to 2,699 babies in the U.S. since 1912. In 2025 it ranked #885 of 17,293 girls’ names in use. Its peak year was 2025, with 302 recorded.

Babies named Tilly, 2025

1 in 11,000

Tilly over time, 1880–2025

Girls
010020030040018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Tilly: meaning, origin, and history

Strength + battle, fight, through Matilda

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Tilly means

Tilly belongs to the name family reached through Tilly → Matilda → *Mahtihildiz. Its meaning is “strength + battle, fight”.

Dictionary etymologyReferences, data & attribution

* (given name, nickname): Shortened from Matilda, + -y. * (surname): The surname may also have origins as a matronymic from Matilda.

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

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Origin, language, and formation

Tilly is used in English.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Matilda and *Mahtihildiz.

Pronunciation and spelling

In English, Tilly is pronounced /ˈtɪli/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 2,699 girls were recorded with the name Tilly between 1912 and 2025. Its highest annual count was 302 in 2025; its best national rank was #885 in 2025.

Over 5 years its rank rose, from #1,332 in 2020 to #885 in 2025. Over 10 years its rank rose, from #2,257 in 2015 to #885 in 2025.

How common is Tilly?

Everything below is computed from the 2025 data — the most recent year available.

Among all babies, 2025
1 in 11,000
302 of 3,315,165 births
Among girls only
1 in 5,320
0.02% of girls
Rank, 2025
#885
of 17,293 girls’ names in use
Coin-flip room size
7,610 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Tilly 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 2025 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 5004%

Put another way: gather 7,610 children born in 2025 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Tilly. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Tillys were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Tilly was born before 2020 — so the typical Tilly is around 5 today.

Median birth year
2020
About 5 years old
Biggest decade
2020s
53.8% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
92.7%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
2,635
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

2020s — 53.8% of all recorded uses (1,452).

Is Tilly 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
+69
Places climbed
Rank vs 5 years ago
+447
Places climbed
Rank vs 10 years ago
+1,372
Places climbed
Births vs 10 years ago
3.60×
More babies than then
Share of its own peak
100.0%
Peak was 2025 (302)
Years since peak
Peaking now
At its all-time high
Year-to-year steadiness
Shifting
20.5% average annual change
Best rank ever
#885
2025

Spellings of Tilly

Tilly is not the most common spelling — Kelly is, with 25.2% against Tilly's 0.14%.

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 Tilly is used

Across 2016–2025, Tilly was most concentrated in South Dakota — about 1 in 2,632 girls, against 1 in 9,161 across all states with data. It was least common in New Jersey (1 in 100,000).

138 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1South Dakota1 in 2,632
  2. 2Oregon1 in 3,125
  3. 3Kentucky1 in 3,226
  4. 4Indiana1 in 3,704
  5. 5Utah1 in 3,846
  6. 6Tennessee1 in 4,167
  7. 7Oklahoma1 in 4,545
  8. 8Washington1 in 4,545

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.

Tilly around the world

Where Tilly 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
    1996–2025
    #193
    in 2025
  • Scotland
    1994–2025
    #164
    in 2025
  • Northern Ireland
    2006–2025
    #231
    in 2025
  • Ireland
    2005–2025
    #239
    in 2025
  • France
    2000–2024
    #5,709
    in 2024
  • Canada
    2009–2024
    #726
    in 2024
  • South Australia
    1952–2013
    #233
    in 2013

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics, National Records of Scotland, Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, Central Statistics Office, Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques, Statistics Canada and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). ONS, NRS, NISRA data under Open Government Licence v3.0. CSO, CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. StatCan data under Statistics Canada Open Licence.

Notable people named Tilly

People whose public names include Tilly, 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.

Tilly in other languages

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

Tillie

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

Tilly by the numbers

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

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
#885
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
Up 447
Best rank ever
#885
2025
Peak year
2025
302 that year
First recorded
1912
Last recorded
2025
All-time count
2,699
Count in 2025
302

Names similar to Tilly

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

TildaMillyKallyBillyNellyTillieZullyEllyHallyEmillyReillyTallyJanellyCallyTiliaTilleySullyDollyDallyAllyKeillyPollyTilaTully

Names with a curve like Tilly

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

ZylaLeylaniLakelynEmberlynnReyaElaniAlaiyaLaylaniJoviLavenderMillerMaelynn

Sibling names for Tilly

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 Tilly

Top names of 2025, Tilly's peak yearThe 2020s in fullOther names that peaked in 2025Girls' names starting with T