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The first name 
Thelma

Thelma is a female first name. In very rare cases it is also used for boys.

When two girls called Thelma meet...

… it’s a special occasion. That’s because the name Thelma is quite rare in the US. While it’s still a name in use, lately, only approximately 2 out of 100,000 girls have been named Thelma. In the SmartGenius ranking, Thelma is #4,509 on the list of most common girls names. In the entire USA, approximately 200,750 people – children, adults and seniors – currently bear the name Thelma. That is 0.06 % of all living Americans.

You won't believe all there is 
to discover about the name
 
Thelma

Thelma -
from zero to hero

#25 - this is the highest position Thelma has ever reached. Most names never manage to reach such high popularity in even one of the 143 years of records.The last time Thelma reached this top position was in the last century, in 1910, when 2,993 newborn girls were named Thelma. But as our statistics show, Thelma has not always been a popular name: in some years of records, lastly in the year 1885, it was either not given to newborns at all or less than 5 times (a name is only included in the official statistics if it is given at least 5 times in a year). Even today it's not at the peak of its popularity, nevertheless Thelma is still the first choice of some parents every year as the most beautiful first name for their newborn daughter.

In years where the graph has no value, the name Thelma was given less than five times or even none at all in the entire USA.

Thelma is still standing in the 21st century

In 2022, 25 newborns were given the name Thelma, making them rank #4,546. Although the name Thelma was more popular in the last century than it is today, it is still common and for some parents it is the name of choice for their daughter. So the chances of an encounter with a young Thelma are still there in our contemporary times.

Thelma -
well known in all states of the USA, most popular in West Virginia

There are only 537 different women’s names registered in every single state in the U.S., and Thelma is one of them. However, Thelma is not equally widespread in all states, but people in West Virginia seem to particularly fancy this name – the 5,952 women called Thelma who live here are 0,403% of all female residents and push their name up to #55, easily placing it in the top 100 most common female names in West Virginia.

Thelma has 6 letters 
and begins with a T

Well, you might say, you probably figured that out yourself! But what you might not know is: The letter T is a quite popular first letter for girls' names. Because: 6.3% of all common girls’ names in the US begin with this letter. By the way, the most common first letters for girls’ names are A, S and M.

With six letters, the name Thelma is of average length. In fact, 28% of all common first names in the US consist of exactly six letters. 24% of all first names are shorter, while 48% have seven letters or more. On average, first names in the US (not counting hyphenated names) are 6.5 letters long. There are no significant differences between boys' and girls' names.

With 6.3% of all girls' names that begin with a T, this first letter is thus much more common than all 26 letters on average - and the most popular one of all the girls’ names starting with T is Teresa.

Other names with 
T, h, e, l, m and a

If you take all the letters in the name Thelma – T, h, e, l, m and a – and put them together again, you can form other names, such as Tahmel or others.

With hands, flags and sounds 
How to say Thelma

If your name is Thelma and someone asks after your name, you can of course just tell them what it is. But sometimes that isn't so easy - what if it's too loud, and you don't understand them well? Or what if the other person is so far away that you can see them but not hear them? In these situations, you can communicate your name in so many other ways: you call spell it, sign it, or even use a flag to wave it...

This is how you spell the name Thelma

So that everyone really understands you when you have to spell the name Thelma, you can simply say:

Tiger

Hat

Elephant

Lion

Mouse

Apple

This is how the name Thelma is spelled in the NATO phonetic alphabet

The NATO alphabet often helps people spell words on the phone or radio when there are communication problems.

How do you write Thelma in Braille?

Braille is made up of dots, which the blind and visually impaired can feel to read words.

Thelma

Thelma

You want to tell a deaf person that your name is Thelma

Just use American Sign Language!

The name Thelma is particularly colorful in the Semaphore flag signaling system!

These flags are used for maritime communication - each flag represents a letter.

T
H
E
L
M
A

Have you ever waved the name Thelma

In the navy, sailors of two ships might wave flags to each other to send messages. A sailor holds two flags in specific positions to represent different letters.

T
H
E
L
M
A

Beeping like crazy...

In Morse code, letters and other characters are represented only by a series of short and long tones. For example, a short tone followed by a long tone stands for the letter A. Thelma sounds like this: