The most used girls' names beginning with T in 2025

T is a small letter for girls and a very large one for boys. The ONS recorded 4,066 girls given a T name in 2025 across 235 spellings, and only one of them, Thea, reaches the top 100. Below Thea the letter drops away quickly: Tilly at 264 and Talia at 260 are the next two, and neither is inside the top 190.

ONS rank (all girls' names)	Name	Babies in 2025	Meaning and origin
66	Thea	686	Greek thea, goddess; also a short form of Dorothea and Theodora
193	Tilly	264	English pet form of Matilda, might and battle
195	Talia	260	Hebrew Talya, dew of God; a separate Greek Thalia means to blossom
253	Tallulah	185	Two sources are argued: a Choctaw place name in Georgia and an Irish name Tuilelaith
306	Tabitha	143	Aramaic, gazelle, translated in Acts as Dorcas
353	Theodora	121	Greek theos god and doron gift, gift of God
444	Tara	90	Irish Teamhair, the hill of the high kings; a separate Sanskrit Tara means star
502	Thalia	80	Greek thallein, to blossom; one of the Muses
561	Tillie	71	A spelling of Tilly, from Matilda
596	Tia	65	Modern; used as a short form of names ending in -tia, and as a Spanish word for aunt
634	Tiaraoluwa	61	Yoruba, usually read as one who is the crown of God; a compound with Oluwa, God
667	Tessa	56	Short form of Teresa, of disputed origin; Greek and Iberian readings are both argued

The most used boys' names beginning with T in 2025

For boys the letter is seventh in the country, with 13,945 babies across 278 names and six inside the top 100. Two of them come from the same Greek root, Theodore at ninth and Theo at twelfth. Thomas and Tommy add a second family, and Teddy at 34th sits between the two, because it serves as a short form of Theodore and of Edward alike.

ONS rank (all boys' names)	Name	Babies in 2025	Meaning and origin
9	Theodore	2,638	Greek theos god and doron gift, gift of God
12	Theo	2,398	Short form of Theodore or Theobald, from Greek theos, god
34	Teddy	1,360	English pet form of Edward or Theodore
35	Thomas	1,344	Aramaic Toma, twin
44	Tommy	1,160	English pet form of Thomas, twin
89	Toby	600	Medieval English form of Tobias, Hebrew Toviyyah, Yahweh is good
116	Tobias	461	Greek form of Hebrew Toviyyah, Yahweh is good
262	Ted	176	English short form of Edward or Theodore
265	Tyler	171	English occupational surname for a tiler of roofs
273	Tristan	166	Old French reshaping of Pictish Drustan, influenced by French triste, sad
299	Tate	152	English surname from Old Norse Teitr, cheerful
314	Teddie	141	A spelling of Teddy, a pet form of Edward or Theodore

Which T names are rising and which are falling

Climbing

The published movement for T is almost entirely downward, which makes the exceptions worth naming precisely. Theo held its exact rank in 2025 and is up 21 places since 2015. Theodore is up 36 places over ten years, Tommy 16 and Teddy 8, even though all three slipped slightly in the year itself. Thea, the only girls' entry, held its rank exactly.

Slipping

Thomas fell 9 places in 2025 and is down 26 since 2015. Tommy and Teddy each lost 5 places, Toby 3 and Theodore 1. Toby is down 45 places since 2015, the letter's steepest long-run decline and one of the larger falls in the boys' top 100. Thea lost no ground in the year but is 8 places below its 2015 position.

What the published change columns cannot tell you

Tilly, Talia, Tallulah, Tabitha, Theodora, Tara, Thalia, Ted, Tyler, Tristan, Tate and Tadhg are all outside the top 100 and have counts but no published change. Theodora at 121 is a good example of the limits of the data: it is clearly connected to the Theodore boom in the boys' list, but the ONS tables give no way to show that the connection is growing.

How big a letter T really is

T is twentieth for girls and seventh for boys by babies named, the third most boy-weighted letter in the alphabet after J and X. For every girl given a T name in England and Wales in 2025 there were roughly three and a half boys, and the gap is almost entirely explained by the Theodore family.

The concentration of the boys' letter around one root is unusual. Theodore, Theo and Teddy together account for 6,396 registrations, which is 46 per cent of the entire letter for boys, and Tobias and Toby add a further 1,061. What looks like a broad letter is really two families and a scattering of surname names such as Tyler and Tate.

Further T names in the published 2025 list

The ONS full list does not stop at the tables above, and the counts stay exact all the way down. For girls the next names in order of use are Tiana at 55, Theadora at 48, Theia at 48, Taqdeer at 46, Tala at 43, Tiffany at 42, Tamara at 39, Tahlia at 38, Taliyah at 34, Teodora at 34, Taliah at 30, Trisha at 30. For boys they are Thiago at 128, Tadhg at 98, Timothy at 96, Talha at 83, Tomas at 79, Taha at 76, Taylor at 76, Teodor at 76, Teo at 71, Tiago at 67, Theodor at 63, Tommy-Lee at 60. Each figure is the exact number of babies registered with that exact spelling during 2025, taken from the ONS full-list table rather than from the top 100. The letter carries 235 different girls' names and 278 different boys' names in the published data altogether, and any name given to two or fewer babies has been removed from it.

Choosing a T name: what the data changes

Theo and Theodore are counted separately by the ONS but heard as one name in a classroom, so a family choosing Theodore should expect the child to meet several Theos. On the girls' side the arithmetic is the reverse: Thea at 686 babies is the most popular T name for girls in the country and still sits outside the top 65, so almost any T name for a daughter is an uncommon choice.

Baby names starting with T: girls and boys