Steven
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Scots form of Stephen/Steven, with the v-form more typical in Scots; Alexander Stevyn recorded at Glenboy in 1472
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/stiːvən/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Steven is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country, where it is the 7th most common given name.
- CACanada≈1 in 329(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 342
- RORomania1 in 69as Ştefan
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Steven itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- #17 (measured from records)
- 10 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 690 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 329 (inferred from the name graph)
972,808 people, 2020
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Canada, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
11 other spellings are counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Stefan in DE Germany, RO Romania, BG Bulgaria and 2 more and Stephen in GB United Kingdom, NG Nigeria.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Scots form of Stephen/Steven, with the v-form more typical in Scots; Alexander Stevyn recorded at Glenboy in 1472.
Sources 1
- Scottish Surnames
Attested across 15 languages in the etymology graph.
Often considered alongside
Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Steven, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.
From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Steven counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | #7 | 972,808 | 1 in 342 | 972K | Steven | 690 |
| DE Germany | #3 | ≈540,000 est. | ≈1 in 148 | listed | Stefan | 354 |
| NG Nigeria | #63 | ≈380,000 est. | ≈1 in 556 | — | Stephen | 155 |
| GB United Kingdom | #5 | ≈380,000 est. | ≈1 in 175 | 28K | Stephen | 438 |
| RO Romania | #144 | 309,900as Ştefan | 1 in 69 | 310K | Stefan | 103 |
| CA Canada | #6 | ≈110,000 est. | ≈1 in 329 | 25 | Steven | 360 |
| SE Sweden | #23 | 72,629as Stefan | 1 in 140 | 73K | Stefan | 188 |
| AT Austria | #3 | ≈60,000 est. | ≈1 in 147 | 31K | Stefan | 210 |
| BG Bulgaria | #8 | 50,950as Стефан | 1 in 137 | 51K | Stefan | 160 |
972,808 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; DEPABD — name-day population snapshot; NSI — most common given names (population); Statistik Austria — STATatlas Vornamen WFS (per-name time series 1984–2024); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Steven is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
Variant of Stephen, reflecting the normal pronunciation of the name in the English-speaking world. Stevie g,° Pet form of Stephen and of Stephanie. A well-known female bearer was the poet Stevie Smith (1902-71), whose baptismal name was Florence Margaret Smith.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In English, A male given name from Ancient Greek, variant of Stephen.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, from Greek Stephanos 'crown'
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
In German, Familienname zu Steven/Stephan; zeigt die Verteilung der Schreibform ohne labiale Frikativ-Variation. Bearer count: 441.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus
In German, Patronymische Form zu Stephan/Stefan; zeigt die Stimmhaftung des Frikativs (v/w statt f/ph). 441 Belege.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Steven Weinbergb. 1933USAmerican theoretical physicist (1933-2021)
- Steven Pinkerb. 1954USCanadian-American cognitive psychologist, linguist, and author, an advocate of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of the mind
- T. Lateefb. 1955USnot in their usual nameAmerican entrepreneur; co-founder of Apple Inc. (1955–2011)
- Forest Whitakerb. 1961USnot in their usual nameAmerican actor
- Steve Carellb. 1962USnot in their usual nameAmerican actor and comedian (born 1962)
- Steven Soderberghb. 1963USAmerican filmmaker (born 1963)
- Steve Austinb. 1964USnot in their usual nameAmerican professional wrestler and actor
- Matt LeBlancb. 1967USnot in their usual nameAmerican actor
- Edgar Davidsb. 1973NLnot in their usual nameDutch association football player and manager
- Steven Pienaarb. 1982ZASouth African footballer
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 136 sources across 71 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 972K | #27 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 1.5K | #1,276 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 1.3K | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 838 | #27 |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2020 | 837 | — |
| AT Austria | Statistik Austria — STATatlas Vornamen WFS (per-name time series 1984–2024) | 2024 | 448 | #1,820 |
| CA Canada | Statistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01) | 2024 | 51 | — |
| CA Canada | Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender | 2024 | 3 | #1,147 |
Reference works 5
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What are other forms of the name Steven?
- In the etymology graph, Stephen, Esteban and Stefan are forms of the same name in other languages; Steve is a recorded short or pet form.
- What does the name Steven mean, and where does it come from?
- Scots form of Stephen/Steven, with the v-form more typical in Scots; Alexander Stevyn recorded at Glenboy in 1472. Recorded by Scottish Surnames.
- Is Steven a male or female name?
- Steven is recorded for both men and women. We don't publish a percentage split: a record's gender belongs to the person and is attached to every given name on that record, so names in cultures where a name string also carries a parent's or spouse's given name pick up large cross-gender counts.
- How do you pronounce Steven?
- A machine transcription gives /stiːvən/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Steven have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 973 thousand people named Steven, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled steven.
- How common is the name Steven?
- In the United States, the national register counted 972,808 people named Steven in 2020, about 1 in 342 residents.
- How common is Steven compared with other names?
- In the United States, Steven is the 7th most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Steven?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/stevenThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Steven” — the 7th most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.