Stephens
surname · English · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Stephens is a surname, most frequently recorded in the United Kingdom, where it is the 6th most common given name. It appears chiefly in English and , written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: A surname transferred from the given name.
- RORomania1 in 69◐
- DEGermany1 in 74
- GBUnited Kingdom1 in 80
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈2.0M ●
- #23 ●
- 10 ●
- Sources
- 621 ●
- 1 in 69 ◐
across 13 countries
of 16M given names
recorded for this name
40M records
Official registry-verified
Romania
Spellings & scripts●
14 other spellings are counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Stefan in DE Germany, RO Romania, PL Poland and 5 more, Stephen in GB United Kingdom, AU Australia, PH Philippines and 3 more, Steven in US United States, CA Canada, IT Italy and Степан in UA Ukraine, RU Russia, KZ Kazakhstan.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records; ○ marks a model's transliteration. Click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin●
A surname transferred from the given name.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world●
Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GB United Kingdom | #6 | 2,606,819 | 2.1M rec. | — | 12 | Stephen | 334 |
| DE Germany | #4 | 1,638,275 | 1.5M rec. | — | 2 | Stefan | 334 |
| AU Australia | #5 | 1,317,224 | 949K rec. | — | 106 | Stephen | 326 |
| UA Ukraine | #68 | 977,649 | 996K rec. | — | listed | Степан | 75 |
| US United States | #8 | 971,970 | 28M rec. | 1 in 342 | 972K | Steven | 621 |
| RU Russia | #97 | 971,485 | 431K rec. | — | #47 | Степан | 163 |
| CA Canada | #6 | 843,178 | 764K rec. | — | 25 | Steven | 274 |
| RO Romania | #10 | 309,900△ | 6.9K rec. | 1 in 69 | 310K | Stefan | 111 |
| FR France | #4 | 308,540 | 2M rec. | 1 in 220 | 309K | Stephane | 403 |
| AT Austria | #3 | 205,320 | 53K rec. | — | 31K | Stefan | 201 |
| PH Philippines | #93 | 169,639 | 129K rec. | — | — | Stephen | 148 |
| IT Italy | #44 | 150,967 | 161K rec. | — | 15 | Steven | 126 |
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.
Languages●
- English1.4M84%
- 62K4%
- Spanish50K3%
- Welsh22K1%
- French13K1%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| English | 1,441,222 | 84% |
| 62,216 | 4% | |
| Spanish | 50,005 | 3% |
| Welsh | 21,880 | 1% |
| French | 13,206 | 1% |
Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.
Other recorded senses●
Stephens is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, Son of Stephen.
as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
In Irish, This name has several origins: viz. Norman Fitzstephen; Irish Mac Gialla Stiofáin (devotee of St. Stephen); and planter English. Apart from Dublin it is mainly found in Mayo, where it is MacStephen, akin to Jordan. MIF
as a nameThe Surnames of Ireland
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Over time●
Show as table
| Year | records |
|---|---|
| 1913 | 5 |
| 1917 | 6 |
| 1918 | 9 |
| 1920 | 7 |
| 1921 | 7 |
| 1922 | 6 |
| 1925 | 5 |
| 1926 | 5 |
| 1927 | 6 |
| 1930 | 5 |
| 1931 | 6 |
| 1938 | 5 |
| 1942 | 6 |
| 1945 | 7 |
| 1946 | 7 |
| 1947 | 7 |
| 1948 | 10 |
| 1949 | 11 |
| 1950 | 8 |
| 1951 | 11 |
| 1952 | 8 |
| 1953 | 22 |
| 1954 | 14 |
| 1955 | 10 |
| 1956 | 8 |
| 1958 | 11 |
| 1959 | 6 |
| 1960 | 9 |
| 1962 | 8 |
| 1963 | 6 |
| 1964 | 13 |
| 1965 | 5 |
| 1966 | 6 |
| 1967 | 10 |
| 1968 | 5 |
| 1970 | 9 |
| 1972 | 5 |
| 1973 | 5 |
| 1975 | 7 |
| 1976 | 5 |
| 1977 | 7 |
| 1978 | 5 |
| 1979 | 5 |
| 1980 | 5 |
| 1981 | 10 |
| 1982 | 7 |
| 1984 | 6 |
| 1985 | 5 |
| 1988 | 7 |
| 1989 | 5 |
| 1990 | 5 |
| 1991 | 5 |
| 1992 | 8 |
US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 53 years between 1913–1992. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.
Notable people with this name●
- Harvey Stephensb. 1901USAmerican actor (1901-1986)
- Joseph Stephensb. 1901USAmerican musician
- Helen Stephensb. 1918USathletics competitor (1918–1994)
- Robert Stephensb. 1931GBEnglish actor (1931–1995)
- Nancy Stephensb. 1949USAmerican actress and songwriter
- Marc Warrenb. 1967GBnot in their usual nameEnglish actor
- Toby Stephensb. 1969GBBritish actor
- John Legendb. 1978USnot in their usual nameAmerican singer-songwriter
- Ezekiel Jacksonb. 1978GYnot in their usual nameGuyanese professional wrestler and bodybuilder
- Sloane Stephensb. 1993USUS American tennis player
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
Evidence●
Attested in 46 sources across 30 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 145K | #190 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 139K | #197 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 139K | #181 |
| GY Guyana | Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025 | 2025 | 629 | #173 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 299 | #27,069 |
| VC St. Vincent & Grenadines | Electoral Office of St Vincent & the Grenadines — Final Voters List (Nov 2025) | 2025 | 252 | #79 |
| ES Spain | INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 190 | #17,245 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 190 | #17,174 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 86 | #19,405 |
| NL Netherlands | CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007) | 2007 | 76 | #23,525 |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 74 | #19,881 |
| CR Costa Rica | TSE — electoral roll (padrón) names | — | 63 | #1,907 |
Reference works 5
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 125 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Stephens?
- We estimate roughly 2.0 million people bear Stephens (counting its spellings and scripts) across 13 countries in our records.
- In which country does Stephens have the most bearers?
- Stephens is most frequently recorded in the United Kingdom, where it is most often spelled stephen.
- Where is Stephens most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Stephens is densest in Romania — about 1 in 69 people — even though United Kingdom holds more of our records for it.
- How common is Stephens compared with other names?
- In the United Kingdom, Stephens is the 6th most common given name of 369,273 given names recorded there.
- What does the name Stephens mean?
- Recorded meaning: A surname transferred from the given name.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/stephensThe same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use. Bulk access and licensing.
About this data
Data snapshot . Figures are rebuilt periodically and will change.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Stephens” — the 6th most common given name in United Kingdom. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.