Tea
A feminine name derived from the word for the aromatic beverage.
Name Census estimates that about 2,438 living Americans carry the first name Tea. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Tea today is around 22 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Tea births was 1998 (290 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Tea. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Tea with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
2.4K
~ 1 in 140,588 Americans
Peak year
1998
290 babies that year
Average age
22
years old
2024 SSA rank
#7,534
Tracked since 1976
Census
Tea in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 2,924 people with the first name Tea, which placed it at #5,733 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#5,733
National first-name rank
People counted
2.9K
2,924 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
1.0
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
52.9% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Tea
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Tea is White at 52.9%. The next largest groups are Black (15.2%) and Hispanic (14.3%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Tea described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Tea at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White52.9% · 1,548
- Black or African American15.2% · 443
- Hispanic or Latino14.3% · 417
- Two or more races9.2% · 269
- Asian and Pacific Islander7.4% · 217
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.0% · 30
Popularity
Tea: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Tea from the 1970s through to the 2020s, spanning 6 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2000s, with 1,160 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 2000s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Tea by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Tea during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Teas live
The SSA's state-level files cover 33 states and territories. California, New York, Texas recorded the most babies named Tea, while Mississippi, Maryland, Idaho recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 39 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Tea
The name Tea is believed to have its origins in Southeast Asia, where the tea plant is native. The word "tea" is thought to be derived from the Amoy dialect word "tê," which was used to refer to the plant and its leaves.
In ancient Chinese texts, the name Tea is mentioned as early as the 3rd century BCE, when the scholar Confucius is said to have written about the medicinal and spiritual properties of the tea plant. The name was closely associated with the tea culture that developed in China and later spread to other parts of Asia and the world.
One of the earliest recorded individuals with the name Tea was Tea Yin, a Chinese Buddhist monk who lived in the 6th century CE. He is credited with introducing the practice of tea cultivation and consumption to Japan, where it became an integral part of the traditional Japanese tea ceremony.
In the 17th century, a Chinese woman named Tea Leoni became famous for her role in the Dutch East India Company's trade in tea. She was instrumental in establishing the tea trade between China and Europe, which helped to popularize the beverage in the West.
Another notable figure with the name Tea was Tea Tephi, an ancient Irish princess who, according to legend, brought the Stone of Scone (also known as the Stone of Destiny) from Israel to Ireland in the 6th century BCE. This stone was later used in the coronation of Scottish monarchs.
In more recent history, Tea Leoni, an American actress born in 1966, has popularized the name through her successful career in film and television. She is best known for her roles in movies such as "Deep Impact" and "The Family Man."
Tea Obreht, a Serbian-American author born in 1985, has also brought attention to the name with her critically acclaimed debut novel "The Tiger's Wife," which won the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2011.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Tea
People
Tea + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Tea as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with T
Other first names starting with T with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Tea: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Tea?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 2,438 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Tea going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 140,588 US residents.
Is Tea a common name?
We classify Tea as "Rare". It ranks above 94.5% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 2,483 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Tea most popular?
The single biggest year for Tea was 1998, when 290 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Tea is about 22 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Tea in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 2,924 people with the name Tea, or 0.97 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #5,733 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Tea in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Tea?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Tea leans strongly female. 2,767 people counted with this name were female (94.7%), compared with 155 male bearers (5.3%). The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Tea?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Tea is White at 52.9%. The next largest groups are Black (15.2%) and Hispanic (14.3%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Tea most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Tea in the 2020 Census, accounting for 52.9% (1,548 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Tea in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Tea a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Tea in the SSA data are female. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Tea still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Tea in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Tea can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people are called Tea?
For a faster, more casual read, check HowManyOfMe.org — our sister site built around that single question.