Thimothy
Derived from the Greek name Timotheos, meaning "honoring God" or "honored by God".
Name Census estimates that about 663 living Americans carry the first name Thimothy. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Thimothy today is around 57 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Thimothy births was 1967 (39 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Thimothy. 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.
People living today
663
~ 1 in 516,975 Americans
Peak year
1967
39 babies that year
Average age
57
years old
1997 SSA rank
#10,666
Tracked since 1948
Census
Thimothy in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 300 people with the first name Thimothy, which placed it at #29,484 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
#29,484
National first-name rank
People counted
300
300 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
64.3% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Thimothy
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Thimothy is White at 64.3%. The next largest groups are Black (19.3%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (6.3%). 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 Thimothy 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 Thimothy at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White64.3% · 193
- Black or African American19.3% · 58
- Asian and Pacific Islander6.3% · 19
- Hispanic or Latino5.3% · 16
- Two or more races2.7% · 8
- American Indian and Alaska Native2.0% · 6
Popularity
Thimothy: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Thimothy from the 1940s through to the 1990s, spanning 6 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1960s, with 323 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1960s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Thimothy 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 Thimothy during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Thimothys live
Origin
Meaning and history of Thimothy
The name Thimothy is derived from the Greek name Timotheos, which is composed of the elements "timos" meaning "honor" and "theos" meaning "god." This suggests the name originally carried a meaning of "honoring God" or "honored by God." The name traces its origins to ancient Greece, where it was borne by one of the most prominent figures of early Christianity.
Thimothy was the name of a close companion and disciple of the Apostle Paul in the New Testament. Paul addressed two of his epistles in the Bible to a young Thimothy, who was the son of a Greek father and a Jewish mother. These letters provided instructions and guidance to Thimothy in his role as a leader of the early Christian church in Ephesus.
One of the earliest recorded bearers of the name was Timotheus of Gaza, a Greek grammarian and critic who lived in the late 5th century AD. Another notable figure was Timotheus of Miletus, a Greek dithyrambic poet and musician who lived in the 5th century BC and is credited with significant contributions to the development of Greek music and drama.
In medieval times, the name appeared in various spellings, including Timothee, Tymothy, and Tymothee. One of the most famous bearers from this period was Timoteo Viti, an Italian Renaissance painter and architect active in the late 15th and early 16th centuries.
During the Protestant Reformation, the name gained popularity among Puritans and other Protestant groups, who often favored names with biblical connections. This led to the emergence of the spelling Thimothy, which became more common in English-speaking regions.
Other notable individuals named Thimothy throughout history include Thimothy Dexter (1747-1806), an eccentric American businessman and philanthropist; Thimothy Pickering (1745-1829), an American politician and Secretary of State under Presidents George Washington and John Adams; and Thimothy Geithner (born 1961), an American public servant who served as the 75th United States Secretary of the Treasury under President Barack Obama.
People
Thimothy + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Thimothy 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
Thimothy: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Thimothy?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 663 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Thimothy 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 516,975 US residents.
Is Thimothy a common name?
We classify Thimothy as "Very Rare". It ranks above 87.1% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 756 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Thimothy most popular?
The single biggest year for Thimothy was 1967, when 39 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Thimothy is about 57 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Thimothy in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 300 people with the name Thimothy, or 0.10 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #29,484 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 Thimothy 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 Thimothy?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Thimothy appears almost entirely male. Of the 297 people counted with this name, 99.7% were male and only a very small share were female. 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 Thimothy?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Thimothy is White at 64.3%. The next largest groups are Black (19.3%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (6.3%). 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 Thimothy most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Thimothy in the 2020 Census, accounting for 64.3% (193 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 Thimothy in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Thimothy a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Thimothy in the SSA data are male. 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 Thimothy still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Thimothy 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 Thimothy 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 common is the name Thimothy?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.