Meaning and history
Meaning unknown. It was a rare name when British author Marie Corelli used it for the Norwegian heroine of her novel Thelma (1887), and it became popular near the end of the 19th century after the book’s publication. It is sometimes claimed to derive from Greek θέλημα (thelema), meaning “will,” though this seems unlikely.
20062006: 34 births, rank #4,265
2007: 28 births, rank #5,097
2008: 30 births, rank #4,882
2009: 35 births, rank #4,269
2010: 20 births, rank #6,382
20112011: 14 births, rank #8,196
2012: 27 births, rank #5,114
2013: 19 births, rank #6,462
2014: 25 births, rank #5,310
2015: 27 births, rank #4,981
20162016: 32 births, rank #4,423
2017: 26 births, rank #5,045
2018: 27 births, rank #4,889
2019: 22 births, rank #5,612
2020: 27 births, rank #4,757
20212021: 32 births, rank #4,326
2022: 26 births, rank #5,028
2023: 23 births, rank #5,390
2024: 33 births, rank #4,294
20252025: 29 births, rank #4,661
Thelma moved from #970 to #979 for girls between 1981 and 1982. Its highest annual birth count came in 1921, with 7,839 births.