Filemon
Masculine · “affectionate”
Filemon is Filemón, the Spanish form of Philemon, written without its accent mark. In Spain the name belongs above all to a comic: Mortadelo y Filemón, Francisco Ibáñez's pair of hopeless secret agents, first drawn in 1958, with Filemón as the bossier partner with two hairs on his head.
How old is the name Filemon?
Filemon first appears in US birth records in 1917 — 108 years ago. The typical Filemon alive today was born around 1973, making them about 52 years old. About 400 people named Filemon are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Filemon most popular?
Filemon peaked in 1928, reaching #2270 nationally. See the whole 1928 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Greek Philemon to Filemon
The story of Filemon
The oldest Philemon worth knowing is in Ovid's Metamorphoses. He and his wife Baucis, a poor old couple in Phrygia, were the only people in their village to take in two strangers, who turned out to be Jupiter and Mercury. The gods flooded the village, turned the couple's cottage into a temple, and granted their one wish, to die at the same moment: at the end of their lives Philemon became an oak and Baucis a linden, growing side by side. Spanish writes the Greek ph as f, so Philemon became Filemón, and Ibáñez's cartoon detective carried the name into every Spanish-speaking newsstand.
Meaning
affectionate
From Greek Philemon, built on philein, to love, and usually read as affectionate or loving.
How the name formed
- Greek Philemon
- Latin Philemon
- Spanish Filemón
- Filemon
Related forms: Filemón · Philemon · Filemone · Filemon
Pronouncing Filemon
fee-leh-MOHN
Spanish stresses the last syllable, which is what the accent in Filemón marks. English readers without the accent may say FIL-eh-mon.
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
- 1917
- Most boys named
- 192612 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2270reached in 1928
- Change vs 2012
- −16.7%5 in 2022, from 6
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.
Filemon in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Filemón in Spanish — spelling variant
- Philemon in English — related form
- Filemone in Italian — related form
- Filemon in Filipino — same name
Filemons among us
people named Filemon 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
Filemon 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
- A long literary record, from Ovid to a much-loved Spanish comic.
- Its Greek meaning, affectionate, is plain and settled.
- Three clear syllables.
- For anyone raised on Spanish comics the first association is Mortadelo's cartoon partner; it is an affectionate association, but a comic one.
- Without the accent mark, English readers will not know where the stress falls.
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Filemon
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Filemons 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 Filemon are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Filemon in 2025?
- Filemon is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Filemon with classmates?
- Filemon will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More F names
The most-given names starting with F, all years combined.
Frank#513 · Fred#1932 · Francis#420 · Frederick#435 · Floyd#2230 · Francisco#322 · Franklin#359 · Fernando#387
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Filemon? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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