Terry

Where Terry comes from

The dictionaries list Terry as a given name — a surname originating as a patronymic from the medieval Norman given name Thierry, a cognate of the English Derek — but don't trace where it came from. The record below is what the SSA data shows.

  • Germanic
  • 2 syllables
  • Vowel-ended
Along the way
  1. 1880
    First SSA year
    Already #600 among boys — 10 babies in the first year on record.
  2. 1947
    Peak, #26
    12,751 babies named Terry — more than any year before or since.
  3. 1970
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #54.
In the dictionary
  • A surname originating as a patronymic from the medieval Norman given name Thierry, a cognate of the English Derek.
  • A male given name from the Germanic languages transferred back from the surname, or a diminutive of Terence or of any of its alternative forms.
  • A male given name from Latin derived from the Latin for the third ("tertius") given to a third child or a child whose name has the suffix III.
  • A female given name, diminutive of Teresa or any of its alternative forms.
Namesakes

No widely known Terry turns up in the encyclopedias yet — the name is still all theirs to make famous.

Sources: the origin note and dictionary entry are quoted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); the namesakes come from Wikidata (CC0); the milestones are worked out from the SSA record.