Stephanie
Masculine · “a crown”
Stephanie is given to girls far more often — 745,148 girls against 2,638 boys since 1880. See Stephanie as a girl name
Stephanie climbed for ninety years before it peaked. It entered the American record at the end of the nineteenth century, rose slowly through both world wars, kept rising through the fifties and sixties, and only reached the top of the lists in the nineteen-eighties — which is one of the longest approaches on record.
How old is the name Stephanie?
Stephanie first appears in US birth records in 1947 — 78 years ago. The typical Stephanie alive today was born around 1984, making them about 41 years old. About 2,400 people named Stephanie are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Stephanie most popular?
Stephanie peaked in 1989, reaching #837 nationally. See the whole 1989 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Stephanos to Stephanie
The story of Stephanie
It is the French feminine that English took whole and never anglicized. That is unusual: English generally reshapes a borrowed name to its own spelling within a generation or two — Jeanne became Jane, Marguerite became Margaret, Guillaume became William — and this one arrived from France with its spelling intact and kept it. The accent went, which is all that happened. Everything else about the name, including the ph that English says as an f, is French rendering of Greek, adopted without adjustment and used by millions of people who have never thought about either.
Meaning
a crown
The Greek stephanos is a wreath or garland, the kind given to a victor. The French feminine ending adds nothing to the sense.
How the name formed
- Stephanos
- Stephanie
Related forms: Stephanie · Stefanie · Estefania · Stefania · Stefania
Pronouncing Stephanie
STEF-uh-nee
Three syllables with the weight at the front. French puts it on the last, stay-fah-NEE, and German and Italian differ again.
Nicknames for Stephanie
High
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
- 1947
- Most boys named
- 1985113 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #837reached in 1989
- Change vs 2009
- 0.0%6 in 2011, 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.
Stephanie in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Stephanie in French — same name
- Stefanie in German — spelling variant
- Estefania in Spanish — same name
- Stefania in Italian — same name
- Stefania in Polish — same name
Stephanies among us
people named Stephanie 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
Stephanie 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 has a form in every European language and is recognized across all of them.
- Steph is one of the most established short forms in English.
- The meaning is settled, short and easy to explain.
- Everyone can spell it and say it on first hearing.
- It is heavily generation-marked to the nineteen-eighties in America.
- Stefanie and Stephany are both in the record and will be written for you.
- The spelling is recorded for a small number of boys, though it reads overwhelmingly as a girl's name.
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What they receive
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Stephanie
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Stephanies are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,400 people named Stephanie are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Stephanie in 2025?
- Stephanie is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Stephanie with classmates?
- Stephanie will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More S names
The most-given names starting with S, all years combined.
Steven#271 · Stephen#383 · Samuel#18 · Scott#534 · Sean#489 · Shawn#681 · Stanley#863 · Steve#1609
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Stephanie? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Stephanie and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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