Phoebe is the Latinized form of the Greek name Phoibe, which means ‘bright, pure’. In Greek mythology, Phoibe was a Titan associated with the moon. Her granddaughter was the moon goddess Artemis.
Phoebe is a first name typically given to girls, but in rare cases also used as a boys name.
The name Phoebe isn’t among the current fashionable names in our top 10 stats, but nonetheless, it’s still very popular and common. In our SmartGenius ranking of all girls names, Phoebe ranks 264. Recently, out of every 10,000 newborn girls, approximately 7 were named Phoebe. In the entire USA, approximately 30,183 people – children, adults and seniors – currently bear the name Phoebe. That is 0.01 % of all living Americans.
For more than 140 years, parents decide to name their daughter Phoebe annualy. This means that there have been girls named Phoebe who witnessed the first Labor Day parade in the U.S. or followed Albert Einstein's career. The name has 'always been there', but never ranked in the top 100, and thus women named Phoebe have consistently been special. Since 2000, however, the name has experienced a certain popularity: in 2022 it holds its present record at #204 in the ranking of the most popular girls' names.
In years where the graph has no value, the name Phoebe was given less than five times or even none at all in the entire USA.
Everyone knows her, everyone loves her and still she’s different from the mainstream: Phoebe occurs in every single state of the U.S. This may sound quite unspectacular at first, but in fact, of the more than 50,000 different female first names that occur in the USA, just 537 are recorded in each individual state, so the name Phoebe is definitely something very special. However, at the same time, since the name does not appear in the top 100 most common first names in any single state, Phoebe is not one of those names that one encounters in every neighbourhood, but stands out from the crowd, is noticeable and special without being strange or unknown. From Alaska to Florida, a total of 30,183 women and girls of all generations bear the name Phoebe – that is one in 5,108. However, there are considerable regional differences – the name is far more popular than average in New Hampshire, where one in 2,340 women and girls is called Phoebe, while it is particularly rare in Wyoming, where you have to ask an average of 38,541 women for their name to get Phoebe as an answer once.
Well, you might say, you probably figured that out yourself! But what you might not know is: The letter P is quite rare as an initial letter for girls' names: only 1.6% of all common girls' names in the US begin with a P, which means that this initial occurs only about half as often as the other letters on average. Nevertheless, P is by no means the rarest initial. While A, S and M are the most common first letters of girls' names, Q, X and U are the least common initials of feminine first names.
With six letters, the name Phoebe is of average length. In fact, 28% of all common first names in the US consist of exactly six letters. 24% of all first names are shorter, while 48% have seven letters or more. On average, first names in the US (not counting hyphenated names) are 6.5 letters long. There are no significant differences between boys' and girls' names.
That means that since 1.6% of all girls’ names begin with a P, this initial occurs less than half as often as the other letters on average. By the way, of the comparatively few girls' names that begin with a P, Patricia is currently the most common.
If your name is Phoebe and someone asks after your name, you can of course just tell them what it is. But sometimes that isn't so easy - what if it's too loud, and you don't understand them well? Or what if the other person is so far away that you can see them but not hear them? In these situations, you can communicate your name in so many other ways: you call spell it, sign it, or even use a flag to wave it...
So that everyone really understands you when you have to spell the name Phoebe, you can simply say:
Pig
Hat
Orange
Elephant
Butterfly
Elephant
Braille is made up of dots, which the blind and visually impaired can feel to read words.
Phoebe
Phoebe
Just use American Sign Language!
These flags are used for maritime communication - each flag represents a letter.
P
H
O
E
B
E
In the navy, sailors of two ships might wave flags to each other to send messages. A sailor holds two flags in specific positions to represent different letters.
P
H
O
E
B
E
In Morse code, letters and other characters are represented only by a series of short and long tones. For example, a short tone followed by a long tone stands for the letter A. Phoebe sounds like this:
