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The first name 
Tessa

Tessa is a first name typically given to girls, but in rare cases also used as a boys name.

Tessa – known and loved in the US!

The name Tessa isn’t among the current fashionable names in our top 10 stats, but nonetheless, it’s still very popular and common. In our SmartGenius ranking of all girls names, Tessa ranks 225. Recently, out of every 10,000 newborn girls, approximately 8 were named Tessa. In the entire USA, approximately 50,470 people – children, adults and seniors – currently bear the name Tessa. That is 0.02 % of all living Americans.

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

What does the name 
Tessa mean?

A contracted form of the English and German name Theresa, Tessa is of uncertain meaning. It could derive from the Greek ‘theros’ meaning ‘summer’, or from ‘therizo’ meaning ‘to harvest’.

Harvesting is the ... process of gathering a ripe crop from the fields. The English word came from the Old English 'hærfest', which means 'autumn' or the month 'August'.

Tessa -
at home in every state from California to New York

The name Tessa may not be in the top rankings of the most popular girls’ names, but it is one of the few female given names, along with only 536 others, that can be found in every single state in the U.S. from Alaska to Florida and from California to New York. Of course, the name occurs more frequently in some states than in others – and Tessa is apparently especially popular in Utah. Although the name is not one of the top 100 most popular women’s names here either, one in 973 women in Utah is called Tessa. In total, that’s 1,201 women who feel addressed when the name Tessa is shouted loudly across Utah and who ensure that their name makes it to #252 in our SmartGenius ranking of the most common female names in this nice state. If you asked all women in the entire U.S. for their first name, you would hear Tessa as the answer a total of 50,464 times. This places Tessa at #512 in our SmartGenius statistics for the most popular women’s names in the whole of the USA. This is true for all currently living women across all states and age groups – the recent popularity of the name Tessa as a baby name is, of course, a bit different, as you can see from the statistics above.

Tessa has 5 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 five letters, the name Tessa is comparatively short. In fact, 17.0% of all common first names in the US consist of exactly five letters. Only 7% of all first names are even shorter, while 75% have more than five letters. 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.

With hands, flags and sounds 
How to say Tessa

If your name is Tessa 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 Tessa

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

Tiger

Elephant

Sun

Sun

Apple

This is how the name Tessa 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 Tessa in Braille?

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

Tessa

Tessa

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

Just use American Sign Language!

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

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

T
E
S
S
A

Have you ever waved the name Tessa

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
E
S
S
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. Tessa sounds like this: