Phyllis

165,949 people in America carry this name — ranked #333 of 923.

Its American moment came before the war.

Say it FIH lihs

2 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

F IH1 L IH0 S — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 165,949 2020 Census
  • Per 100,000 54.9 about 1 in 1,997 people
  • As a surname No not above the reporting threshold

What Phyllis means and where it comes from

Greek in origin, reading literally as “green bough”.

Origins are a matter of scholarly argument rather than record, and a name can be traced more than one way. We state one reading and say where it came from.

How often Phyllis has been given

323,304 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 1947, with 9,204 of them.

80 90 00 10 20 30 40s 50 60 70 80 90 00 10 20

Most people carrying it were born in the 1940s. It has been given less often of late.

Counted from Social Security card applications, so it covers births registered in the United States and leaves out names given to fewer than five babies in a year.

Middle names that fit Phyllis

Two syllables sit with almost anything — the join matters more than the length.

Better avoided

  • Phyllis Patricia — same opening
  • Phyllis Susan — runs together
  • Phyllis Sarah — runs together

Chosen by sound from the pronouncing dictionary, then ordered by how often the name is given. None of it is a rule — the ear decides.

A name from before the war

The year most children were called Phyllis was 1947. Names of that age tend to come back once their owners are grandparents.

Is Phyllis used for boys or for girls?

0.1% men
165,745 women

As recorded on census returns, not as anyone thinks the name ought to be used.

Names about as common

The nearest entries above and below by number of people.

The most common full names

The census counts first names and surnames separately and never together, so these are estimates: how often the two halves would meet if they paired at random. They do not — names cluster by community — so read them as an order of magnitude, not a headcount.

Who answers to it now

  • White alone (non-Hispanic) — 81.3%
  • Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 14.0%
  • Hispanic or Latino origin — 1.6%
  • Two or more races — 1.7%
  • Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 0.8%
  • American Indian and Alaska Native alone — 0.7%

Categories are how people answered the census — a fact about the bearers, not a property of the name. Conclusions are ours, not the Census Bureau’s.

Try it Birth Plan Worksheet

Tick what matters, print it, hand it over. Nothing is stored anywhere.

Open Birth Plan Worksheet on its own page

Where this page gets its numbers

  • Counts, ranks and shares: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census tabulations of first and last names occurring 100 or more times. Percentages, bands and groupings are our own arithmetic — the conclusions are ours, not the Bureau’s.
  • Pronunciation, syllables and rhyme groups: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, Carnegie Mellon University. The plain-English respelling is ours.
  • Origins and the forms a name takes in other languages: Charlotte Yonge, History of Christian Names, 1884 — a public-domain work. Scholarship has moved on since, so read it as one reading of a name, not the last word.

Below a hundred people we publish no figure at all — the same threshold the Census Bureau applies to us. What each source covers
Other names of Greek origin