Stephen
Stephen is a boy's name that peaked in 1952, when it was the 21st most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 383rd. About 646,000 Stephens are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 55.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Stephen boys named Stephen
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 867,669
- Estimated living today
- 646,000
- Median age today
- 55
- Peak year
- 1952
- Best rank
- 21st
- Rank in 2025
- 383rd
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 2,930 / 864,739
How old the living Stephens are
born that year still alive today
Of the 867,669 babies given the name since 1880, about 646,000 are alive — 74 in every hundred. Roughly 24,000 of them are children and 207,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1970 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
Origin Ancient Greek
From Latin Stephanus, from Ancient Greek Στέφανος, from στέφανος (“crown, wreath”), from στέφω (“to put round, to surround”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Stephens
- Stephen Hawking (1942–2018)British theoretical physicist, cosmologist and author
- Stephen King (born 1947)American novelist and writer
- Stephen Harper (born 1959)22nd prime minister of Canada from 2006 to 2015
- Stephen Hillenburg (1961–2018)American marine science educator and artist
- Stephen I (300–257)Pope and Bishop of Rome from 254 to 257
- Stephen III (720–772)pope
- Stephen V (died 891)pope
- Stephen VI (died 897)pope
People named Stephen with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Stephen is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Stephen is most concentrated in Rhode Island (2.3×), Massachusetts (2.2×), Maine (1.9×), the District of Columbia (1.8×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1952
The most popular boys’ names the year Stephen peaked:
Stephen elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ireland boys | Stephen | 26,368 | 4th |
| New Zealand boys | Stephen | 18,603 | 5th |
| Scotland boys | Stephen | 14,608 | 10th |
| England and Wales boys | Stephen | 8,933 | 60th |
| France boys | Stephen +1 spelling | 6,615 | 187th |
| Northern Ireland boys | Stephen | 1,157 | 21st |
| Norway boys | Stephen | 562 | 243rd |
| Belgium boys | Stephen | 187 | 456th |
| Poland boys | Stephen | 2 birth registrations | 732nd |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Stephen: rank by region
In 2017, Stephen was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Stephen | 869 | 5 |
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Stephen among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland boys | Stephen | 107 | 194 |
A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Where Stephen lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 1,038 men called Stephen were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Men: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alicante/Alacant | Stephen | 216 | 0.215 | 430 |
| Almería | Stephen | 75 | 0.191 | 467 |
| Málaga | Stephen | 108 | 0.123 | 522 |
| Santa Cruz de Tenerife | Stephen | 54 | 0.101 | 897 |
| Murcia | Stephen | 78 | 0.098 | 696 |
| Palmas, Las | Stephen | 45 | 0.077 | 1,106 |
Listed in 23 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 29 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Stephen against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.