Stefan
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in German: a male given name, feminine equivalent Stefanie or Stephanie, equivalent to English Stephen; variant form Steffen
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ʃtɛfan/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Stefan 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.
- RORomania1 in 69(measured from records)
- SESweden1 in 140
- ATAustria≈1 in 147
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 Stefan 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 69 (inferred from the name graph)
972,808 named Steven, 2020
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Romania
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
10 other spellings are counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Stephen in GB United Kingdom, NG Nigeria and Steven in US United States.
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)
From Greek Stephanos, “crown”; linked to St Stephen, feast day 26 Dec.
Sources 1
- Dictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
Attested across 5 languages in the etymology graph.
How Stefan is read(measured from records)
Stefan is one spelling over 2 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- German59%
- English15%
Swedish form of Stephen; crown or garland
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Stefan 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 | 972,808as Steven | 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 | 309,900 | 1 in 69 | 310K | Stefan | 103 |
| SE Sweden | #23 | 72,629 | 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); 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)
Stefan is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In French, From Greek Stephanos, “crown”; linked to St Stephen, feast day 26 Dec.
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
From Greek. See }Stephen in main dictionary.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In Polish, a male given name from Latin [in turn from Ancient Greek], equivalent to English Stephen
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Italian, redução dialetal setentrional de Stefano
as a nameDicionário dos sobrenomes italianos
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)
- Stephen IVb. 770ITnot in their usual namepope
- Burt Lancasterb. 1913USnot in their usual nameAmerican actor (1913–1994)
- Stephen Breyerb. 1938USnot in their usual nameUS Supreme Court justice from 1994 to 2022
- Stephen Jay Gouldb. 1941USnot in their usual nameAmerican biologist and historian of science (1941–2002)
- Stephen Hawkingb. 1942GBnot in their usual nameBritish theoretical physicist, cosmologist and author (1942–2018)
- Steve Martinb. 1945USnot in their usual nameAmerican comedian, actor, musician and writer (born 1945)
- Yusuf Islamb. 1948GBnot in their usual nameBritish musician (born 1948)
- Steve Irwinb. 1962AUnot in their usual nameAustralian zookeeper, conservationist and TV personality (1962-2006)
- Stefan Edbergb. 1966SESwedish tennis player
- Stefan Kießlingb. 1984DEGerman association football player
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 120 sources across 53 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RO Romania | DEPABD — name-day population snapshot | 2023 | 310K | — |
| RO Romania | DEPABD — resident population names | 2023 | 310K | — |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 73K | #48 |
| BG Bulgaria | NSI — most common given names (population) | 2018 | 51K | #8 |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2020 | 44K | — |
| AT Austria | Statistik Austria — STATatlas Vornamen WFS (per-name time series 1984–2024) | 2024 | 31K | #80 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 23K | #1,448 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 219 | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 123 | #1,448 |
Reference works 7
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
- Hoffman, Polish Surnames: Origins and Meanings (2nd ed., 2012)
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
- In which country does Stefan 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 is Stefan most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Stefan is densest in Romania — about 1 in 69 people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- How do you pronounce Stefan?
- A machine transcription gives /ʃtɛfan/ (IPA) for German.
- Where does the name Stefan come from?
- From Greek Stephanos, “crown”; linked to St Stephen, feast day 26 Dec. Recorded by Dictionnaire généalogique des prénoms.
- What are other forms of the name Stefan?
- In the etymology graph, Steven, Stephen and Esteban are forms of the same name in other languages; Stevo is a recorded short or pet form.
- Is Stefan a male or female name?
- Stefan 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.
- What does the name Stefan mean?
- In German, a male given name, feminine equivalent Stefanie or Stephanie, equivalent to English Stephen; variant form Steffen
- How common is the name Stefan?
- In Romania, the national register counted 309,900 people named Stefan in 2023, about 1 in 69 residents.
- How common is Stefan compared with other names?
- In the United States, Stefan is the 7th most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Stefan?
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/stefanThe 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, “Stefan” — the 7th most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.