Talya
A feminine name of Hebrew origin meaning "morning dew" or "gentle rain".
Name Census estimates that about 2,854 living Americans carry the first name Talya. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Talya today is around 23 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Talya births was 2014 (104 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Talya. 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 Talya with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
2.9K
~ 1 in 120,096 Americans
Peak year
2014
104 babies that year
Average age
23
years old
2024 SSA rank
#2,809
Tracked since 1961
Census
Talya in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 2,387 people with the first name Talya, which placed it at #6,656 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
#6,656
National first-name rank
People counted
2.4K
2,387 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.8
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
62.8% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Talya
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Talya is White at 62.8%. The next largest groups are Black (19.6%) and Hispanic (8.6%). 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 Talya 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 Talya at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White62.8% · 1,500
- Black or African American19.6% · 468
- Hispanic or Latino8.6% · 205
- Two or more races6.8% · 163
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.5% · 36
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.6% · 15
Popularity
Talya: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Talya from the 1960s through to the 2020s, spanning 7 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 836 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Talya remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Talya 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 Talya during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Talyas live
The SSA's state-level files cover 14 states and territories. California, New York, Florida recorded the most babies named Talya, while Maryland, Arizona, Georgia recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 77 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Talya
The given name Talya has its origins in the Hebrew language and culture. It is a feminine form of the Hebrew name Talyah, which is derived from the Hebrew word "tal" meaning "dew" or "morning dew." The name is believed to have originated sometime around the 5th century BCE during the Second Temple period in ancient Israel.
Talya is mentioned in the Talmud, a central text of Rabbinic Judaism, where it is used as a reference to the morning dew. This association with the natural phenomenon of dew gave the name a sense of freshness, purity, and new beginnings.
One of the earliest recorded examples of the name Talya can be found in the 11th century, when a Jewish woman named Talya bat Yosef lived in the city of Cordoba, which was then part of the Caliphate of Cordoba in present-day Spain. She was known for her contributions to the study of Hebrew poetry and literature during the Golden Age of Jewish culture in Spain.
In the 12th century, a Jewish philosopher and scholar named Talya ben Yosef al-Andalusi lived in Seville, Spain. He wrote extensively on topics such as medicine, astronomy, and mathematics, and his works were influential in the intellectual circles of the time.
During the 14th century, a prominent Jewish scholar and commentator named Talya ben Shlomo lived in the city of Saragossa, Spain. He is known for his commentaries on various Jewish texts, including the Talmud and the Midrash.
In the 16th century, a Jewish woman named Talya Nasi lived in the Ottoman Empire. She was the daughter of Joseph Nasi, a wealthy Jewish diplomat and entrepreneur, and played a significant role in the Jewish community of the time.
Another notable figure with the name Talya was Talya Cohen, a Jewish poet and scholar who lived in Italy during the 16th century. She was renowned for her mastery of Hebrew poetry and her contributions to the study of Jewish mysticism.
These examples illustrate the long and rich history of the name Talya, which has been used by notable figures across various fields and time periods, particularly within Jewish communities. The name's association with the morning dew has imbued it with a sense of freshness, purity, and new beginnings throughout its history.
People
Talya + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Talya 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
Talya: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Talya?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 2,854 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Talya 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 120,096 US residents.
Is Talya a common name?
We classify Talya as "Rare". It ranks above 95% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 2,934 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Talya most popular?
The single biggest year for Talya was 2014, when 104 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Talya is about 23 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Talya in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 2,387 people with the name Talya, or 0.79 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #6,656 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 Talya 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 Talya?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Talya appears almost entirely female. Of the 2,394 people counted with this name, 99.7% were female and only a very small share were male. 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 Talya?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Talya is White at 62.8%. The next largest groups are Black (19.6%) and Hispanic (8.6%). 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 Talya most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Talya in the 2020 Census, accounting for 62.8% (1,500 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 Talya in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Talya a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Talya 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 Talya still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Talya 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 Talya 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 Talya?
Our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers how many Americans are named Talya at a glance, with the living-bearer count up front.