Sophie

86,141 people in America carry this name — ranked #614 of 923.

Most Americans carrying it were born this century.

Say it SOH fee

2 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

S OW1 F IY0 — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 86,141 2020 Census
  • As a surname 188 ranked #102,164 the other way round

The meaning and origin of Sophie

Greek in origin, reading literally as “wisdom”.

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.

Sophie through the years

120,581 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 2011, with 4,738 of them.

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

Most people carrying it were born in the 2010s. It has been given more 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 for Sophie

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

Better avoided

  • Sophie Elizabeth — runs together
  • Sophie Susan — same opening
  • Sophie Sarah — same opening

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.

On the way up

Sophie is given more often now than it was a generation ago. Most names move the other way.

Boys or girls: who is called Sophie?

0.1% men
86,022 women

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

Same syllables and stress as Sophie

Nothing else in the file ends on the same sound — a rare thing, and useful if you want a first name nobody will echo.

Same rhythm — 2 syllables, stress on the first

Matched on phonemes, not spelling, so the lists follow the ear rather than the page.

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.

How Sophie is spelled

Sophie is how 21% of them spell it — 414,032 people answer to the sound.

Each spelling is its own census entry — the counts never overlap, so the shares are of the group, not of the country.

Names about as common

The nearest entries above and below by number of people.

Who has this name today

  • White alone (non-Hispanic) — 72.0%
  • Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 2.5%
  • Hispanic or Latino origin — 11.8%
  • Two or more races — 5.7%
  • Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 7.3%
  • American Indian and Alaska Native alone — 0.6%

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.

The states where Sophie is most common

In Utah the name is given 2.5 times as often as it is across the country.

  • Utah ×2.5
  • Vermont ×1.8
  • New Hampshire ×1.8
  • the District of Columbia ×1.7
  • Massachusetts ×1.6

Measured against the state's own share of births since 1960, so a small state can lead a big one. Counted from Social Security card applications.

The same name elsewhere

  • Wike Lett
  • Sophy English
  • Sofia Hung.|It
  • Sappi Lith
  • Saffi Danish
  • Fieke German
  • Zofia Polish
  • Zosia Polish
  • Zsofe Hungarian
  • Ssonia Russian
  • Sophia English
  • Ssofija Russian
  • Fiechen German
  • Zsoflie Hungarian

Forms of one name traced to the same root. Spellings are as the glossary printed them, so some look older than the versions in use today.

Try it Name Matcher

Enter a surname and hear which first names sit well with it.

The matcher is confident about clashes — rhymes, doubled sounds, colliding stresses — because those are facts about the phonemes. Ordering the names that pass is a set of rules, not a verdict on beauty.

Open Name Matcher 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