Theron
given name · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Theron is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. Recorded meaning: sif Central, apparently named with a Gaul, element turon height, hill (see Tercel).
- USUnited States1 in 44K(measured from records)
- CACanada≈1 in 58K
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 68K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- Sources
- 365 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 36K (inferred from the name graph)
7,539 people, 2020
Highest-authority source
Ireland, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
sif Central, apparently named with a Gaul, element turon height, hill (see Tercel). There seems to have been some confusion with Thirion, which is derived from a medieval given name of uncertain origin. Both surnames were borne by Huguenot refugees to England in the 17th—18th cents. Var.: Therond.
Sources 1
- The Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles
Where in the world(measured from records)
Theron counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | — | 7,539 | 1 in 44K | 7.4K | Theron | 365 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈960 est. | ≈1 in 68K | 149 | Theron | 87 |
| ZA South Africa | — | ≈900 est. | ≈1 in 63K | — | Theron | 118 |
| IT Italy | — | ≈780 est. | ≈1 in 80K | — | Theron | 6 |
| CA Canada | — | ≈650 est. | ≈1 in 58K | 2 | Theron | 59 |
| IE Ireland | #914 | ≈140 est. | ≈1 in 36K | — | Theron | 11 |
| NA Namibia | — | ≈55 est. | ≈1 in 48K | 2 | — | 9 |
| GY Guyana | — | 18 | 1 in 42K | 18 | — | 5 |
| IS Iceland | — | ≈7 est. | ≈1 in 49K | listed | Theron | 2 |
7,539 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025; ECN Government Gazette 8791 — 2025 local authority candidates. Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Theron is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, Theron of Akragas (died 473 BC), a tyrant of Akragas in Sicily.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Afrikaans, French Huguenot-origin Afrikaans surname.
as a wordsanames.co.za — South African surnames
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Theron Metcalfb. 1784USAmerican judge
- Theron R. Strongb. 1802USAmerican politician (1802–1873)
- Theron Moses Riceb. 1829USAmerican politician (1829-1895)
- Theron Ephron Catlinb. 1878USAmerican politician (1878-1960)
- Theron C. Bennettb. 1879USAmerican musician (1879-1937)
- Theron Randolphb. 1906USAmerican physician
- Theron Warthb. 1911USAmerican film producer (1911-1974)
- Theron Readb. 1964USAmerican actor (1964-2009)
- Theron Cooperb. 1974BSBahamian sprinter
- Theron Smithb. 1980USAmerican basketball player (born 1980)
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 45 sources across 27 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 256 | #80,054 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 181 | #99,845 |
| GB United Kingdom | Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register) | 2002 | 149 | #25,765 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 100 | #150,436 |
| NA Namibia | ECN Government Gazette 8791 — 2025 local authority candidates | 2025 | 2 | #11 |
| GB United Kingdom | A Dictionary of Surnames (Hanks & Hodges, 1988) | — | — | — |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 3
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Theron mean, and where does it come from?
- sif Central, apparently named with a Gaul, element turon height, hill (see Tercel). Recorded by The Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles.
- Is Theron a male or female name?
- Theron is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- How common is the name Theron?
- In the United States, the national register counted 7,539 people named Theron in 2020, about 1 in 44 thousand residents.
- How common is Theron compared with other names?
- In Ireland, Theron is the 914th most common given name of 14,976 given names recorded there.
- In which country does Theron have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 7.5 thousand people named Theron, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled theron.
What do you want to know about Theron?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/theronThe same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use; a free API key gives 1,000 requests a day, and bulk access is licensed separately.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Theron” — the 914th most common given name in Ireland. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.