Tess is the English short form of Theresa, a name of uncertain origin that is usually explained with the Greek therizein, "to harvest", and so read as "harvester", or linked to the Aegean island of Thera. Thomas Hardy's novel Tess of the d'Urbervilles made it a literary name in its own right. Tess ranked number 551 in 2000, its best year in the data, had slipped to number 1120 by 2015 and ranks 1794 in 2025.