The name Sophia stands for ‘the wise one’. It is derived from the Greek word ‘sophia,’ which means ‘divine wisdom’ in English.
Sophia is a first name typically given to girls, but in rare cases also used as a boys name.
In the US, Sophia is one of the most popular names ever. In the SmartGenius ranking recently, it has regularly been among the top 10 most common girls names and is currently in place 3. In fact, one out auf 300 girls under the age of 10 is named Sophia. In total, there are currently 390,402 people – children, adults and seniors – named Sophia living in the United States, which is approximately 0.12 % of the entire population.
The name Sophia stands for ‘the wise one’. It is derived from the Greek word ‘sophia,’ which means ‘divine wisdom’ in English.
Who is wise? Wise men are people who are particularly rich in experience and knowledge and who show this in their behavior and apply it in a wise way.
Sophie Okonedo (*1968)
The british film and stage actress played a wide variety of roles, for example at the Royal National Theatre, alongside Ralph Fiennes as Cleopatra in Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra," or in the film "Hotel Rwanda," for which she received a nomination as Best Supporting Actress.
Queen Sofía of Spain (*1938)
Sophia Margarita Victoria Friederika of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg and Hanover" was Queen of Spain from 1975 until the abdication of her husband King Juan Carlos I in 2014.
Sophia Bush (*1982)
The American actress starred in the drama series "One Tree Hill" as Brooke Davis and had also a big role as Erin Lindsay in the police procedural drama series "Chicago P.D.". She is also knwon for her social activism like the Time's Up movement.
Sophia Poznanska (1906 - 1942)
The Polish-Jewish resistance fighter joined the resistance group "Red Chapel". In 1941 she was arrested and committed suicide in prison without revealing the cipher code of the radio messages.
Sofia Copola (*1971)
Sofia Carmina Coppola is the daughter of Francis Ford Coppola and the cousin of Nicolas Cage. In the beginning she starred in a few films, mostly her father's films. Later, she turned more to filmmaking. In 2004 she won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for the screenplay of her film "Lost in Translation".
When you hear the name Sophia, you might first think of a woman or a girl. But did you know that there are also places with the name Sophia? Are you also called Sophia? Maybe one day you will visit the places that are named just like you...
even the capital is called Sofia.
is a former church, later mosque and until recently a museum in the Turkish city of Istanbul, which now serves as a mosque again.
is a technology and science park on the Côte d'Azur.
of Johannesburg in South Africa is named Sophiatown.
3 - this is the number of times that the first name Sophia has entered the top position, i.e. rank 1, of the most popular first names for girls in the USA. The last time was not so long ago, in the year 2013, when 21,262 newborn girls were given this beautiful name. And even when it wasn't on top in the past, it has been given by new parents to their daughters every year since first name statistics began in 1880, putting it in the exclusive circle of only 432 first names for girls that are given at least 5 times a year in the USA. This makes Sophia one of the timeless classics among first names that have truly become part of the American identity.
In years where the graph has no value, the name Sophia was given less than five times or even none at all in the entire USA.
In 2022, the first name Sophia was given 12,322 times to newborn girls, ranking it #5. The name was given least in the year 1956, where it ranked #860 - but even then 121 of newborn girls were given this first name.
There are only 537 different women’s names registered in every single state in the U.S., and Sophia is one of them. However, Sophia is not equally widespread in all states, but people in Nevada seem to particularly fancy this name – the 3,374 women called Sophia who live here are 0,755% of all female residents and push their name up to #11, easily placing it in the top 100 most common female names in Nevada.
Well, you might say, you probably figured that out yourself! But what you might not know is: The letter S is a very popular first letter for girls' names. That’s because 9.3% of all common girls’ names in the US begin with this letter. Only the first letter A is more common for girls' names.
With six letters, the name Sophia 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 if 9.3% of all girls' names start with an S, this initial letter occurs nearly three times as often as all other letters on average. And by the way: Of all the girls' names that start with an S, Susan is the most common.
If your name is Sophia 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 Sophia, you can simply say:
Sun
Orange
Pig
Hat
Igloo
Apple
Braille is made up of dots, which the blind and visually impaired can feel to read words.
Sophia
Sophia
Just use American Sign Language!
These flags are used for maritime communication - each flag represents a letter.
S
O
P
H
I
A
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.
S
O
P
H
I
A
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. Sophia sounds like this:
