Holiday Calendar

National Terry Day

Next celebratedThursday, April 22, 2027

Most Terrys were named decades ago, so National Terry Day tends to land on the older people in a family. Call rather than post, which is the difference between marking a day and keeping it.

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Last updated September 7, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?
YEARLY DATEApril 22
OBSERVED INInternationally
CATEGORYNames
ORIGIN

Community Origin

FOUNDING ENTITY
Not documented
FIRST OBSERVED
Not documented
HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

Marked in two countries, the earliest trace in 2024.

National Terry Day is marked in two countries, with dated newsroom and publisher posts including WSLS 10 in Roanoke, Virginia, and the earliest of them from 2024. No founder, establishing document or first-observance record has been identified, and searches of congressional and federal records return nothing.

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INTRO

Terry was one name for boys and three for girls

Terry is one name for American boys and three for American girls. Among boys, the rival spellings Terri and Terrie amount to 0.3% of everyone in that cluster. Among girls they amount to 63.1%, and Terri on its own has gone to more babies than Terry ever did.

That split is not a quirk of pronunciation, and it is not a small thing. It means the boys' Terry and the girls' Terry sit in the national record as two very different names, one concentrated in a single spelling and one scattered across several. National Terry Day falls on April 22, and it lands on both of them at once.

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ORIGINS

Terry Day history

CHAPTER 01

Two names that arrived by different roads

The reference work Behind the Name does not carry one Terry. It carries two. The first comes down from an English surname, by way of the medieval Thierry, a Norman French form of Theodoric.

The Gothic name behind Theodoric meant "ruler of the people". The second Terry is simply a diminutive of Terence or Theresa, and it is that one whose meaning nobody has settled.

CHAPTER 02

The parent names keep their secrets

Terence descends from the Roman family name Terentius, which Behind the Name calls "of unknown meaning". Of Theresa it says only that "the meaning is uncertain", offering Greek words for summer and for harvesting, or the name of a Greek island, as the possibilities.

Terence also reached English late, and by an unexpected road. It was used in Ireland as an anglicised form of Toirdhealbhach, and the same entry records that it "was not found as an English name until the late 19th century". American birth records agree from the other side, with Terence first appearing among boys in 1885.

CHAPTER 03

The boom lifted the count and lowered the rank

More American boys were named Terry in 1957 than in any other year on record. The margin is thin, though, with the runner-up year within forty births of it. The name ranked only 33rd even in that peak year.

Its best standing had come earlier, in 1946, when far fewer Terrys were born and the postwar surge had not yet lifted every rival name alongside it. The name matched that 26th place twice more before the decade turned, and never bettered it. A name can be at its most common and its least distinguished in the same twelve months.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why We Love National Terry Day

Spelling

Grouping names with similar pronunciation would change the rankings.

The Office for National Statistics says it plainly on the cover of its own historical dataset: rankings use the exact spelling on the birth certificate, and 'grouping names with similar pronunciation would change the rankings'. National Records of Scotland says the same, noting that variants of one name are counted separately. For a name that fragments in one sex and not the other, that rule is not a footnote. It is the whole shape of the record.

Halves

Two Terrys, moving in different decades

Kept apart the way the registries keep them, the boys' Terry and the girls' Terry barely share a story. The boys' version rose through the 1940s, held a high place for a generation and only left the American top thousand in 2022. The girls' version last appeared in that same thousand in 1987, thirty-five years earlier. Anyone writing about the name has to say which one they mean, every time.

Decline

A day for a name on its way out of the charts

Terry is no longer a common American baby name in either column, and a day like this one arrives when a name has mostly stopped being given and started being carried. The people it belongs to were largely named decades ago, which is why the observance reads as a nod to the living rather than a fashion note. It is a small annual reminder that names have lifespans.

BY THE NUMBERS

National Terry Day by the Numbers

424,523
American boys named Terry, 1880 to 2025
96,955
American girls given the exact spelling Terry, 1880 to 2025
146,113
American girls named Terri, the commonest girls' spelling
26
consecutive years in the US top 50 for boys, 1943 to 1968

TIMELINE

Timeline

Terence reaches America

Terence appears in the US national birth-name file for the first time, with nine boys. Behind the Name dates the arrival of Terence in English to the late 19th century, and the American record lands in the same window.

Into the top fifty

Terry enters the fifty most common names given to American boys, at 49th. It stays inside that fifty every year until 1968.

The most Terrys ever

More American boys are named Terry than in any other year, and the name still ranks only 33rd. The postwar birth surge lifted every name at once, so a record count came with a middling rank.

Terry passes Terence in Britain

In the ONS top 100 for England and Wales, Terry outranks Terence for the first time at a decade point, 93rd against 99th. At the five previous decade points the formal name had led.

The Marathon of Hope

Terry Fox dips his artificial leg in the Atlantic on 12 April to begin a run across Canada for cancer research. He is forced to stop on 1 September, having covered 5,373 kilometres.

Out of the American top thousand

Terry appears in the top 1,000 names for American boys for the last time, at 978th. It sits outside that list in each of the following three years.

GOOD TO KNOW

National Terry Day Around the World

United States

The short form won outright. Terry outnumbered Terence among American boys in every one of the 145 years it appears, with a single exception: in 1885 the two are level at nine births each.

England and Wales

The formal name led for four decades. Terence held a top-100 place at five straight decade points from 1924, with Terry off the list entirely at the first two and standing 88th to Terence's 18th in 1944.

Scotland

National Records of Scotland logged 449 boys named Terry between 1974 and 2021, and 380 named Terence between 1974 and 2010. For girls the i spelling dominates, with 572 Terris against 23 Terrys.

Canada

Behind the Name picks its own famous bearer for the diminutive: Terry Fox, who set out to run across Canada on an artificial leg to raise money for cancer research. The run named after him is still held every September.

Ireland

The broadcaster who fronted BBC Radio 2's breakfast show was registered as a Terence. Michael Terence Wogan was born in Limerick on 3 August 1938, spent decades on British radio and television, and was knighted in 2005.

GET INVOLVED

How to Celebrate National Terry Day

EDITOR'S PICK

Ask your Terry what is on the certificate

Terence, Theresa, Terrence, Teresa or just Terry: the answer decides which of the name's two etymologies belongs to them. Plenty of Terrys have never checked.

LOOK

Look the name up in a real reference

Behind the Name keeps two separate entries for Terry, one for the surname route and one for the short form. Reading both takes a minute and settles most arguments about what the name means.

PULL

Pull your own year out of the birth data

The US Social Security Administration publishes every name given to at least five babies a year since 1880. Finding the Terrys born in your Terry's birth year is a two-minute job and a good card line.

COMPARE

Compare the spellings before you print anything

The Social Security Administration and National Records of Scotland both count Terri, Terrie and Terry as three separate names, and a card or a cake with the wrong one is a very old family grievance waiting to happen.

GIVE

Give the day to a Terry who is not in the room

The name peaked generations ago, so most Terrys are now the older people in a family. A phone call lands better than a post.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know National Terry Day?

1 / 5

Behind the Name traces one route to Terry through the medieval name Thierry, a form of Theodoric. What meaning does it give for Theodoric?

Answer

No. There is no proclamation, resolution or act recognising it at any level of government, and no trademark or registry record for it. It is an informal observance with no legal standing anywhere we could find.

COLOPHON

Sources

How we know what’s on this page. References, not endorsements.

10sources
4primary records
3independently dated
Primary records
U.S. Social Security AdministrationTabulated as of March 1, 2026
Beyond the Top 1000 Names (national data)
The complete national counts of given names by sex and year of birth, 1880 to 2025, covering every name given to at least five babies in a year. Every American figure on this page is computed from these files, whose read-me sets out the ranking rule used.
View source
Office for National StatisticsReleased 31 July 2025
Top 100 baby names in England and Wales: 1904 to 2024
The top 100 boys' and girls' names registered in England and Wales at ten-yearly intervals, and the source of the statement that rankings use the exact spelling on the birth certificate and that grouping similar names would change them.
View source
National Records of ScotlandRegistrations to 11 February 2025
Babies' First Names 2024, full list 1974 to 2024
Every first forename registered in Scotland from 1974 to 2024 with counts and ranks, together with the note that variants of the same name and different spellings are counted separately.
View source
The Terry Fox Foundation
Terry's Story
The foundation's own account of the Marathon of Hope, giving the April 1980 start, the September 1980 stop and the distance covered.
View source
Additional coverage
Behind the Name
Terry (1)
The surname route to the name, from an English surname derived from the medieval Thierry, a Norman French form of Theodoric.
View source
Behind the Name
Terry (2)
Terry as a diminutive of Terence or Theresa, masculine and feminine, with Terry Fox named as the entry's famous bearer.
View source
Behind the Name
Theodoric
The Gothic name behind the surname route, glossed as 'ruler of the people' from the elements meaning 'people' and 'ruler, king'.
View source
Behind the Name
Terence
Terence from the Roman family name Terentius, described as of unknown meaning, with its use in Ireland to anglicise Toirdhealbhach and its late arrival in English.
View source
Behind the Name
Theresa
Theresa's uncertain meaning and its suggested Greek origins, plus the list of English diminutives that includes Teri, Terri, Terrie and Terry.
View source
Wikipedia
Terry Wogan
Background on the broadcaster registered as Michael Terence Wogan, including his 1938 birth in Limerick and his 2005 knighthood.
View source
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