Stephan

given name · Latin script

Meaning, in German: German surname from Stephan/Stefan < gr. Stephanos ‘Kranz, Krone’; plate shows labial-fricative variation in spellings (f/ff/ph/v)

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

/ʃtɛfan/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Stephan 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.

rarermore common
  • RORomania1 in 69as Ştefan(measured from records)
  • BGBulgaria1 in 137as Стефан
  • SESweden1 in 140as Stefan

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 Stephan 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)

972,808 named Steven, 2020

#17 (measured from records)

of 15M given names

10 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
690 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 69 (inferred from the name graph)

Romania, as Ştefan

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

StevenLatin(measured from records)
СтепанCyrillic(measured from records)
סטפןHebrew(measured from records)
ΣτεφανουGreek(measured from records)
ՍտեփանArmenian(measured from records)
สตีเฟ่นThai(measured from records)
스티븐Hangul(measured from records)
სთეპანGeorgian(measured from records)
স্টিভেনBengali(measured from records)
ስቲቨንEthiopic(measured from records)

10 other spellings are counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Stefan in DE Germany, RO Romania, BG Bulgaria and 2 more, 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)

German surname from Stephan/Stefan < gr. Stephanos ‘Kranz, Krone’; plate shows labial-fricative variation in spellings (f/ff/ph/v).

Sources 1

  • Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus

Attested across 13 languages in the etymology graph.

How Stephan is read(measured from records)

Stephan is one spelling over 3 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 3 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.

  • German44%

    German surname from Stephan/Stefan < gr. Stephanos ‘Kranz, Krone’; plate shows labial-fricative variation in spellings (f/ff/ph/v).

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus

    From Greek Stephanos ‘wreath, crown’; plate shows labial fricative variation in the spelling. 11057 bearers.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus

    a male given name, variant of Stefan

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • English35%

    An unincorporated community in Hyde County, South Dakota.

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • French6.7%

    From Greek Stephanos, “crown”; linked to St Stephen, feast day 26 Dec.

    as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms

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)

Stephan 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.

Where Stephan is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States#7972,808as Steven1 in 342972KSteven690
DE Germany#3≈540,000 est.≈1 in 148listedStefan354
NG Nigeria#63≈380,000 est.≈1 in 556—Stephen155
GB United Kingdom#5≈380,000 est.≈1 in 17528KStephen438
RO Romania#144309,900as Ştefan1 in 69310KStefan103
SE Sweden#2372,629as Stefan1 in 14073KStefan188
AT Austria#3≈60,000 est.≈1 in 14731KStefan210
BG Bulgaria#850,950as Стефан1 in 13751KStefan160

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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Stephan is also recorded as 6 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • a separate name3 spellings in the group

    Also written Stéphan, Stęphan

  • Spanish given name8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Spain, Argentina, Colombia

    Also written Stéphan, Stephán, Stëphän, Stéphàn, Stëphan

  • Hindi given name5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, United States, Switzerland, United Kingdom

    Languages: Hindi, Urdu

    Also written Stéphan

  • Polish given name4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Poland, United States, Netherlands, United Kingdom

    Also written Stéphan, Stèphan, Stėphån

  • Finnish given name3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Switzerland, United States, Finland, Sweden

    Languages: Finnish, Estonian

    Also written Stéphan

  • Indonesian given name4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Indonesia, United States, Tanzania, India

    Also written Stéphan, Stéphâñ, Stèphan

74 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Stephan is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • Variant of Stephen, preserving the ~ vowels of the Greek name.

    as a nameA concise dictionary of first names

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)

12001400160018002000Stefan Uroš IV Dušan, b. 1308Stefan Lazarević, b. 1374Stefan Janev, b. 1960Stephan Elliott, b. 1964Patrick Kluivert, b. 1976Stephan Andersen, b. 1981Prince Ernst August of Hanover, b. 1983Stephan Lichtsteiner, b. 1984Stephan El Shaarawy, b. 1992Stephan James, b. 1993

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)

InformalHallo Stephan,Hi Stephan, (English)

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 106 sources across 49 countries.

Official registers attesting Stephan
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex202024K#1,416
AT AustriaStatistik Austria — STATatlas Vornamen WFS (per-name time series 1984–2024)20243.7K#985
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—1.6K#1,206
SE SwedenSCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023)2020994—
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020253#1,416
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)202586—
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)19958—

Reference works 10

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

How do you pronounce Stephan?
A machine transcription gives /ʃtɛfan/ (IPA) for German.
What does the name Stephan mean, and where does it come from?
German surname from Stephan/Stefan < gr. Stephanos ‘Kranz, Krone’; plate shows labial-fricative variation in spellings (f/ff/ph/v). Recorded by Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus.
Is Stephan a male or female name?
Stephan 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 are other forms of the name Stephan?
In the etymology graph, Steven, Stephen and Esteban are forms of the same name in other languages.
In which country does Stephan 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 Stephan most common?
No national register we hold counts the spelling Stephan itself. The densest figure for its family of spellings is Romania's: the national register counts about 1 in 69 people named Ştefan.
How common is the name Stephan?
In the United States, the national register counted 972,808 people named Steven in 2020, about 1 in 342 residents.
How common is Stephan compared with other names?
In the United States, Stephan is the 7th most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.

What do you want to know about Stephan?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/stephan

The 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, “Stephan” — the 7th most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Stephan parses inside a full name →