Phil
Masculine · “lover of horses”
Phil is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 20,036 boys against 72 girls since 1880.
Phil is the front of Philip, and Philip means a lover of horses — a genuinely aristocratic Greek name, since keeping horses was what marked a man out as wealthy enough to fight on one.
How old is the name Phil?
Phil was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Phil alive today was born around 1948, making them about 77 years old. About 11,000 people named Phil are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Phil most popular?
Phil peaked in 1947, reaching #260 nationally. Today it ranks #7679, 7,419 places below that high. See the whole 1947 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From philos + hippos to Phil
The story of Phil
Philip II of Macedon was the father of Alexander, and the name was carried by Hellenistic kings after him and then by an apostle, which put it into every Christian language. English used it steadily from the Middle Ages, and the clipping Phil was ordinary spoken shorthand throughout. American families registered it as a legal name in its own right through the twentieth century, peaking in the mid-1930s.
Meaning
lover of horses
From the Greek philos, 'loving' or 'friend', and hippos, 'horse'. The compound is transparent and undisputed. Horse ownership was the mark of the Greek aristocratic class, so the name carried a social claim as well as a description.
How the name formed
- philos + hippos
- Philippos
- Philip
- Phil
Related forms: Felipe · Filippo · Philippe · Filipp
Pronouncing Phil
FIL
One syllable. The ph is simply an f, following the Greek spelling that Latin transmitted.
Nicknames for Phil
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
- 1880
- Most boys named
- 1960626 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #260reached in 1947
- Change vs 2022
- +25.0%10 in 2025, from 8
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.
Phil in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Felipe in Spanish — related form
- Filippo in Italian — related form
- Philippe in French — related form
- Filipp in Russian — related form
Phils among us
people named Phil are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 170,808 born in 2025 was named Phil
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Bruno test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Phil's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Bruno climbed just as high around 1915, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Bruno's path sketches the road Phil is walking now.
Phil sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Phil beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Phil in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Philip stands behind it with two and a half thousand years of documented use.
- The meaning is transparent and vivid, and the social history behind it is genuinely interesting.
- One syllable, plain and never mispronounced.
- It is a homophone of an ordinary English verb.
- Given outright it stays informal; Philip on the certificate keeps both registers.
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What they receive
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Phil
Masculine · #7679 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Phils are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 11,000 people named Phil are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Phil in 2025?
- Phil ranks #7679 among US boy names in 2025, with 10 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Phil?
- About 1 in every 170,808 US boys born in 2025 was named Phil — 10 in all.
- Will my child share the name Phil with classmates?
- Phil will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Phil
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Early#7679 · Obie#7679 · Huston#7679 · Knute#7679 · Rance#7679 · Blain#7679 · Doyle#7679 · Millard#7679
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Phil? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Phil and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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