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
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.
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.
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.