Stephine
Feminine · “crown”
Stephine is one of the shorter spellings in a very large family, and the only one that can honestly be read two ways. Taken as Stephanie with a syllable removed, it is a contraction. Taken as Steph with the ending of Josephine and Delphine fastened on, it is a different construction that happens to produce the same letters. Both readings turn up in the same registers, and the spelling itself refuses to choose between them.
How old is the name Stephine?
Stephine first appears in US birth records in 1952 — 73 years ago. The typical Stephine alive today was born around 1981, making them about 44 years old. About 1,600 people named Stephine are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Stephine most popular?
Stephine peaked in 1973, reaching #1666 nationally. See the whole 1973 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From The Greek name behind Stephen to Stephine
The story of Stephine
Stephen is the first name in the Christian calendar to belong to somebody killed for the faith, and the church put his day immediately after Christmas, on the twenty-sixth of December. That is why the carol about Good King Wenceslas opens on the feast of Stephen, and why the day is a public holiday under his name across much of Europe. In Ireland and parts of Britain it belonged to the wren boys, who went house to house with a bird on a pole. In Italy it is Santo Stefano and the shops close. Whatever else this family of names carries, it carries a date, and the date is why the name stayed in circulation through centuries when most saints' names did not. The feminine forms came much later and by way of France, which is where the -ie and -ine endings on all of them originate.
Meaning
crown
The Greek word behind Stephen and Stephanie is settled and needs no argument. What this spelling adds is ambiguity of construction rather than of sense: the ending can be read as the tail of Stephanie or as the one borrowed from Josephine, and the two produce identical letters. Either way the meaning comes through the parent name whole. The ending contributes nothing to it, which is true of nearly every American respelling and is worth saying rather than assuming.
How the name formed
- The Greek name behind Stephen
- Stephanie as the French feminine
- A dozen American respellings of it
- Stephine, readable as a contraction or as Steph plus an ending
Related forms: Stephanie · Stefania · Estefania · Stefanie · Stefania
Pronouncing Stephine
STEF-een
Both readings are in live use: two syllables, STEF-een, or three, STEF-uh-nee, treating the spelling as a compressed version of the longer name. It is worth settling on one early, because the spelling will not settle it for anyone else and both are defensible from the letters.
Nicknames for Stephine
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
- 1952
- Most girls named
- 198165 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1666reached in 1973
- Change vs 2008
- −12.5%7 in 2009, 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.
Stephine in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Stephanie in French — same name
- Stefania in Italian — same name
- Estefania in Spanish — same name
- Stefanie in German — spelling variant
- Stefania in Polish — same name
Stephines among us
people named Stephine 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
Stephine 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 sits inside a name everyone already knows, so the sound is never a problem even when the spelling is.
- Steph is waiting from the first day of school and carries none of the ambiguity the full spelling does.
- It is far rarer than the standard spelling while being no harder to say.
- The spelling gives no instruction about how many syllables to use, and your child will be asked repeatedly.
- Autocorrect and clerks both reach for Stephanie, so a good share of written records will end up saying that instead.
- Among five common spellings of this name, this is not the one people guess.
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What they receive
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Stephine
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Stephines are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,600 people named Stephine are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Stephine in 2025?
- Stephine is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Stephine with classmates?
- Stephine will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More S names
The most-given names starting with S, all years combined.
Susan#1085 · Sarah#90 · Sandra#1207 · Stephanie#557 · Sharon#1250 · Shirley#1581 · Samantha#151 · Sophia#5
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Stephine? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Stephine and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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