Humanverse

Stephano vs Stephen

American parents have registered 867,669 Stephens since 1880, against 542 Stephanos. Stephen is still ahead, with 829 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Stephano against Stephen, 1880 to 2025 0 6k 12k 18k 24k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Stephano Stephen

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Stephen has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1880 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2024, when Stephano had 15 and Stephen had 870.

Side by side

  Stephano Stephen
Total US births 542867,669
Most in one year 2223,082
Babies in 2025 11829
Estimated living today 530646,000
Median age today 2255
Peak year 20001952
Best rank 3,640th boys21st boys
Rank in 2025 7,194th383rd
First recorded 19821880
Girls / boys 0 / 5422,930 / 864,739

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Which name is older

Half of the Stephens alive today are over 55; half the Stephanos are over 22. That is 33 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Stephano Stephen
England and Wales 48,933
France 2406,615

Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Stephano and Stephen.