Cephus
Masculine · “a rock”
Cephas is the name Jesus gave Peter, and it is not Peter. It is the Aramaic word for a rock, and the Greek name everybody knows is a translation of it — which means the most famous nickname in Christianity is a piece of wordplay that only works in a language the New Testament is not written in.
How old is the name Cephus?
Cephus first appears in US birth records in 1888 — 137 years ago. The typical Cephus alive today was born around 1942, making them about 83 years old. About 400 people named Cephus are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Cephus most popular?
Cephus peaked in 1906, reaching #852 nationally. See the whole 1906 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From an Aramaic word for a rock used as a nickname to Cephus
The story of Cephus
The nickname stuck so hard that the original name almost disappeared. Simon was extremely common; Kepha was not a name at all before this — no Aramaic-speaking parent had ever called a child Rock — and it functions in the sources as a description that hardened into an identity. English carried the Greek translation and made Peter one of the commonest names in Europe, while the Aramaic original survived only in the letters and, oddly, in American naming, where families reading Paul in English picked up a form nobody else was using.
Meaning
a rock
Kepha is Aramaic for a stone or rock, and it is what Simon was actually called by the people who knew him — Paul uses it throughout his letters, in Greek script, without translating. Petros is the Greek rendering. So the pun about building a church on this rock is Aramaic underneath and Greek on the surface, which is one of the few places where the language behind the text shows through clearly.
How the name formed
- an Aramaic word for a rock used as a nickname
- Greek translates it as Petros
- Paul keeps the Aramaic form in his letters
- American families take the form from the epistles
- Cephus appears in the record in the 1880s
Related forms: Kepha · Kephas · Cephas
Pronouncing Cephus
SEE-fus
Two syllables, stress at the front. The c is soft before an e, which is one of the reliable English rules, and the Aramaic original began with a hard k.
Nicknames for Cephus
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1888
- Most boys named
- 192120 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #852reached in 1906
- Change vs 1994
- 0.0%5 in 2007, from 5
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Cephus in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Kepha in Aramaic — related form
- Kephas in Greek — spelling variant
- Cephas in English — spelling variant
Cephuss among us
people named Cephus are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Cephus sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- It is a genuine scriptural name that almost nobody else uses.
- The meaning is concrete, strong and easy to explain to a child.
- It is read correctly at sight by anybody who knows the soft c rule.
- Cephas is the standard spelling and this ending will be corrected.
- It will be heard as Seifus and Cyrus by people meeting it once.
- It belongs to the oldest layer of the American record.
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Cephus
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Cephuss are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 400 people named Cephus are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Cephus in 2025?
- Cephus is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Cephus with classmates?
- Cephus will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More C names
The most-given names starting with C, all years combined.
Charles#48 · Christopher#68 · Carl#1132 · Christian#96 · Caleb#58 · Cameron#76 · Carlos#150 · Clarence#1499
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Cephus? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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