Masterpiece Generator Name Generator
How popular is the name Tess?
Births per year, rank history and how many Tesses are alive today.
Tess (female) is a rare girls' name in England and Wales, ranked 2605th in 2025 and given to 10 babies. The name peaked in 2009, when 95 babies were given the name, the 438th most popular that year. It has declined since 2009; the 2025 figure is roughly 11% of its peak. Tess is also a common short form of Teresa, so many people called Tess are registered under the longer name.
The Tess you are most likely to meet is around 16 years old. Half of all Tesses born in England and Wales are between 14 and 26, and there are at least 1,700 of them alive today. If you walk into a room of 100 females, there's less than a 1% chance that anyone will be called Tess - on average, only one in every 186 such rooms contains a Tess.
How many babies are named Tess each year?
Where does Tess rank among girls' names?
Where this data comes from
Figures from 1996 onwards are the Office for National Statistics' annual baby-name registrations for England and Wales, which record every name given to three or more babies in a year. Figures before 1996 are estimates: the ONS published only top-100 rankings at ten-year intervals back to 1904, so counts for those years are modelled from the rankings, calibrated against Douglas Galbi's long-run research into English name frequencies, and shown with an uncertainty band. Estimates of living bearers combine these birth figures with national life tables and ONS mid-year population estimates.
One limit worth naming: these figures count names as registered at birth. Anyone who changes their name later in life - including trans people, and anyone who adopts a different name by deed poll or simply by use - is not reflected here. Birth registrations record where a name began, not the name a person lives with.
Common questions
When was the name Tess most popular?
Tess peaked in 2009, when 95 babies in England and Wales were given the name.
How many people are called Tess?
At least 1,700 people named Tess born in England and Wales are alive today.
How old is the typical Tess?
Most living Tesses are between 14 and 26; the most common age is about 16.
Is Tess becoming more or less popular?
Declining: recent figures are a fraction of the 2009 peak.