Theresa

Theresa is an English and German feminine name whose exact origin remains uncertain, though it is most commonly linked to the Greek toponym Therasia, the name of a small island near Santorini, or possibly to the Greek verb therizein, meaning to harvest. The name was rare outside the Iberian Peninsula until the fame of the sixteenth-century Spanish mystic and reformer Teresa of Ávila spread it widely across Catholic Europe. The Austrian Empress Maria Theresa of the eighteenth century further established the name's prestige in German-speaking lands. Common variants and cognates include Teresa, Térèse, and Therese, with the French Thérèse made especially prominent by the beloved saint Thérèse of Lisieux.