Stephen is the English form of the Greek name Stephanos meaning ‘crown, wreath’.
Stephen is a male first name. In very rare cases it is also used for girls.
The name Stephen 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 boys names, Stephen ranks 270. Recently, out of every 10,000 newborn boys, approximately 7 were named Stephen. In total, there are currently 848,797 people – children, adults and seniors – named Stephen living in the United States, which is approximately 0.25 % of the entire population.
Stephen is the English form of the Greek name Stephanos meaning ‘crown, wreath’.
Saint Stephen is ... regarded as the first Christian martyr, dying circa 34 AD.
Stephen is the epitome of perseverance. Every year since first names have been registered in the U.S., parents have come up with the idea of naming their son Stephen. This means that several boys named Stephen have witnessed significant events such as the first Nobel Prize ceremony, the moon landing, the release of the first cell phone, or the turn of the millennium. The first name Stephen has reached its best rank of #19 multiple times, most recently in 1951. The name has also been in the top 100 for many years. This makes Stephen one of the most popular names of all time.
In years where the graph has no value, the name Stephen was given less than five times or even none at all in the entire USA.
Wherever you go, wherever you live – there’s a good chance to meet Stephen. Because: There are men and boys named Stephen in every state in the USA. This may sound quite unspectacular at first, but in fact, of the nearly 50,000 different male first names that occur in the USA, just 386 are recorded in each individual state, so the name Stephen is definitely something very special. In some regions it even makes it into the top 100 of the most popular male first names, for example in Massachusetts, where Stephen ranks on position 17. The greatest chance of meeting Stephen, however, is in Rhode Island, where one in 86 boys and men bears this beautiful name – that is far above average – in the entire USA it is only one in 197 men and boys and in North Dakota, where the name is least represented in relation to the population, you even have to ask an average of 461 men and boys for their name before you once get Stephen as an answer.
Well, you might say, you probably figured that out yourself! But what you might not know is: The letter S is a quite popular first letter for boys’ names. Because: 5.9% of all common boys’ names in the US begin with this letter. By the way, the most common first letters for boys’ names are J, A and D.
With seven letters, the name Stephen has a typical length for first names in the US. In fact, 26% of all common first names consist of exactly seven letters. 52% of all first names are shorter, while 22% have eight 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.
This means that with 5.9% of all boys' names that begin with an S, this first letter is much more common than all 26 letters on average - and the most popular one of all the boys’ names starting with S is Steven.
If your name is Stephen 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 Stephen, you can simply say:
Sun
Tiger
Elephant
Pig
Hat
Elephant
Nut
Braille is made up of dots, which the blind and visually impaired can feel to read words.
Stephen
Stephen
Just use American Sign Language!
These flags are used for maritime communication - each flag represents a letter.
S
T
E
P
H
E
N
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
T
E
P
H
E
N
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. Stephen sounds like this:
