Therese
A German and Scandinavian spelling of Teresa, from a Greek root meaning "harvester". Only about 75 women in Poland carry it and no girls have been given it in years, so meeting one would stick with you.
Therese Pronunciation
What Therese means
Where Therese comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Therese begins in Greek. Scholars point to theros, the summer harvest, and therizein, to reap. From there comes the meaning the name still carries: harvester, reaper. The exact source stays debated, though the harvest sense has held for a long time.
The form travelled north and took on German and Scandinavian colour. In those countries Therese sits among ordinary names. Two saints carried the fuller Teresa: Teresa of Ávila, born 1515, and Thérèse of Lisieux, who died in 1897 at twenty-four. Their fame pulled the name across Catholic Europe, Poland included.
Polish softens it. Teresa is the standing variant. Tereska and Terenia are the diminutives a family reaches for. On the first of October the imieniny falls for every Teresa on the class register. Read the name back to its Greek root and you find the reaper of the harvest.
How many people are named Therese
1 in 300584 women in Poland is named Therese. 75 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #4144 among female names.
Therese as a middle name
Therese is a first name for 75 women in Poland and a middle name for another 153, a 33/67 split. In the women's middle-name ranking it sits 535th, between Simone (153) and Tola (152).
-
#533 Aida154
-
#534 Simone153
-
#535 Therese153
-
#536 Tola152
-
#537 Flora150