Steve
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Short form of Stephen, from Greek Stephanos, “crown”; linked to St Stephen, feast day 26 Dec
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/stiːv/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Steve 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 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 Steve 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, as Ştefan
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(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)
Short form of Stephen, from Greek Stephanos, “crown”; linked to St Stephen, feast day 26 Dec.
Sources 1
- Dictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
Attested across 15 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Steve 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 | 309,900as Ştefan | 1 in 69 | 310K | Stefan | 103 |
| 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); 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)
Steve 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.
In English, short form of Steven/Stephen; Greek 'crown'
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
Short form of Stephen and Steven, associated with the American film star Steve McQueen (1930-80), noted for his ‘tough-guy’ roles.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In English, A diminutive of the male given name Steven and Stephen; also used as a formal male given name.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Swedish, Steve är en engelsk smekform till → Stephen.
as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
In French, Forme anglaise de Steven/Stephen, du grec Stephanos « couronne ».
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
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)
- Steve Forrestb. 1925USAmerican actor (1925–2013)
- Steve McQueenb. 1930USAmerican actor (1930-1980)
- Steve Lawrenceb. 1935USAmerican singer and actor (1935–2024)
- Steve Bannonb. 1953USAmerican media executive & political strategist (born 1953)
- Steve Ballmerb. 1956USAmerican businessman, former chief executive officer of Microsoft
- Steve Buscemib. 1957USAmerican actor
- Steve McQueenb. 1969GBBritish film director and video artist (born 1969)
- Steve Howeyb. 1977USAmerican actor
- Steve Chenb. 1978TWChinese-American businessman
- Steve Mandandab. 1985CDFrench footballer (born 1985)
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 104 sources across 59 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 262K | #206 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 1.5K | #1,312 |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2020 | 808 | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 395 | #206 |
| AT Austria | Statistik Austria — STATatlas Vornamen WFS (per-name time series 1984–2024) | 2024 | 113 | #1,263 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 105 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1998 | 5 | — |
Reference works 3
- 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 does the name Steve mean, and where does it come from?
- Short form of Stephen, from Greek Stephanos, “crown”; linked to St Stephen, feast day 26 Dec. Recorded by Dictionnaire généalogique des prénoms.
- Is Steve a male or female name?
- Steve 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 Steve?
- In the etymology graph, Stephen, Stevie and Steph are forms of the same name in other languages; it is recorded as a short form of Steven.
- How common is the name Steve?
- In the United States, the national register counted 972,808 people named Steven in 2020, about 1 in 342 residents.
- How common is Steve compared with other names?
- In the United States, Steve is the 7th most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
- How do you pronounce Steve?
- A machine transcription gives /stiːv/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Steve 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 Steve most common?
- No national register we hold counts the spelling Steve itself. The densest figure for its family of spellings is Romania's: the national register counts about 1 in 69 people named Ştefan.
What do you want to know about Steve?
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/steveThe 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, “Steve” — the 7th most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.