Stephen

665,596 people in America carry this name — ranked #56 of 923.

Carried mostly by the Baby Boomers.

Say it STEE vuhn

2 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

S T IY1 V AH0 N — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 665,596 2020 Census
  • Rank #56 Very common

The meaning and origin of Stephen

Greek in origin, reading literally as “crown”.

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 Stephen has been given

863,147 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 1952, with 23,077 of them.

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

Most people carrying it were born in the 1950s. 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 for Stephen

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

Better avoided

  • Stephen Steven — rhymes
  • Stephen Nicholas — runs together
  • Stephen Scott — 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.

Going quiet

Stephen has more than halved in three decades. The people carrying it belong mostly to the Baby Boomers.

Boys or girls: who is called Stephen?

99.9% men
704 women

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

Where in America Stephen is thickest on the ground

In Rhode Island the name is given 2.3 times as often as it is across the country.

  • Rhode Island ×2.3
  • Massachusetts ×2.2
  • Delaware ×1.8
  • Maine ×1.8
  • the District of Columbia ×1.7

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.

Names with the same rhythm as Stephen

Ends on the same sound

Same rhythm — 2 syllables, stress on the first

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

The likeliest 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.

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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