Steve

given name · English · Latin script

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Steve is a given name, 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: Short form of Stephen, from Greek Stephanos, “crown”; linked to St Stephen, feast day 26 Dec.

rarermore common
  • 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 ●

across 13 countries

#23 ●

of 16M given names

10 ●

recorded for this name

Sources
621 ●

40M records

Official registry-verified

1 in 69 ◐

Romania

Spellings & scripts●

StevenLatin · English●12M records
СтепанCyrillic · Russian●997K records
סטפןHebrew · Hebrew●13K records
ΣτεφανοςGreek · Greek●3.7K records
ᲡტეფანეGeorgian · Georgian●1.6K records
สตีเฟ่นThai · Thai●777 records
스티븐Hangul · Korean●13 records
স্টিভেনBengali · Bangla●2 records
ስቲቨንEthiopic · Amharic●0 records
ՍթիվենArmenian · Armenian●0 records

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●

Short form of Stephen, from Greek Stephanos, “crown”; linked to St Stephen, feast day 26 Dec.

Sources 1

  • Dictionnaire généalogique des prénoms

Attested across 16 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world●

Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.

Where Steve is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
GB United Kingdom#62,606,8192.1M rec.—12Stephen334
DE Germany#41,638,2751.5M rec.—2Stefan334
AU Australia#51,317,224949K rec.—106Stephen326
UA Ukraine#68977,649996K rec.—listedСтепан75
US United States#8971,97028M rec.1 in 342972KSteven621
RU Russia#97971,485431K rec.—#47Степан163
CA Canada#6843,178764K rec.—25Steven274
RO Romania#10309,900△6.9K rec.1 in 69310KStefan111
FR France#4308,5402M rec.1 in 220309KStephane403
AT Austria#3205,32053K rec.—31KStefan201
PH Philippines#93169,639129K rec.——Stephen148
IT Italy#44150,967161K rec.—15Steven126

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.

Languages●

  • English5.2M80%
  • 231K4%
  • Spanish213K3%
  • French209K3%
  • German85K1%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
English5,212,39980%
231,3054%
Spanish213,1863%
French209,2143%
German85,2911%

Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.

Other names spelled this way◐

Steve is also recorded as 6 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Spanish given name538K records spelled Steve8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, France, Brazil, Peru

    Languages: Spanish, French, Portuguese

    Also written Stève, Stëvë

  • a separate given name242K records spelled Steve2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Italy

    Also written Stève

  • Polish given name30K records spelled Steve46 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Poland, Czechia, United Kingdom

    Languages: Polish, Russian, Czech

    Also written Стив, Stiv, Стів, Стеве, Steeve

  • Indonesian given name13K records spelled Steve4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Indonesia, Malaysia, United Kingdom

    Languages: Indonesian, Malay

    Also written Stève, Stevę

  • Greek given name10K records spelled Steve6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Greece, United States, United Kingdom, Canada

    Also written Stiv, Stève, Stęvę, Στεβε, Στιβ

  • Turkish given name4.8K records spelled Steve4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Netherlands

    Languages: Turkish, Azerbaijani, Uzbek

    Also written Stève

79 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses●

Steve is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In English, short form of Steven/Stephen; Greek 'crown'

    as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…

  • Short form of Stephen and Steven, associated with the American film star Steve McQueen (1930-80), noted for his ‘tough-guy’ roles.

    as a nameA concise dictionary of first names

  • In English, A diminutive of the male given name Steven and Stephen; also used as a formal male given name.

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In Swedish, Steve är en engelsk smekform till → Stephen.

    as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon

  • In French, Forme anglaise de Steven/Stephen, du grec Stephanos « couronne ».

    as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)

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●

05K10K15K19001950200011K · 1959

Show as table
Steve in SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present), United States, 1880–2025
Yearrecords
188052
188144
188263
188362
188466
188560
188670
188754
188883
188964
189066
189156
189268
189373
189480
189571
189694
189779
189887
189978
1900139
190176
190292
1903127
1904123
1905126
1906131
1907157
1908149
1909187
1910245
1911255
1912543
1913661
1914998
19151,335
19161,399
19171,385
19181,523
19191,294
19201,281
19211,294
19221,269
19231,255
19241,219
19251,145
19261,052
19271,027
1928925
1929887
1930862
1931786
1932780
1933728
1934771
1935773
1936741
1937846
19381,077
19391,208
19401,555
19411,881
19422,376
19432,684
19442,836
19453,384
19464,570
19476,231
19485,742
19495,027
19504,207
19514,053
19524,313
19534,539
19545,062
19555,509
19566,472
19578,910
195810,079
195911,068
196010,645
19619,997
19629,154
19638,050
19647,092
19655,685
19664,617
19673,909
19683,408
19693,062
19702,930
19712,373
19721,845
19731,511
19741,443
19751,383
19761,407
19771,270
19781,236
19791,254
19801,218
19811,116
19821,024
19831,063
19841,042
1985990
1986989
19871,004
1988949
1989997
19901,007
1991896
1992882
1993831
1994714
1995754
1996648
1997627
1998635
1999660
2000649
2001624
2002545
2003563
2004484
2005475
2006472
2007448
2008422
2009415
2010279
2011324
2012303
2013242
2014256
2015224
2016205
2017189
2018167
2019159
2020148
2021135
2022122
2023114
202499
2025105

US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 146 years between 1880–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

19201940196019802000Steve Forrest, b. 1925Steve McQueen, b. 1930Steve Lawrence, b. 1935Steve Bannon, b. 1953Steve Ballmer, b. 1956Steve Buscemi, b. 1957Steve McQueen, b. 1969Steve Howey, b. 1977Steve Chen, b. 1978Steve Mandanda, b. 1985

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 102 sources across 59 countries.

Official registers attesting Steve
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020262K#206
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024)202422K#3,037
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 200020002K#13,675
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 201020101.9K#15,483
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 202020201.5K#18,488
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—1.5K#1,312
NO NorwaySSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population)—1.2K#1,477
SE SwedenSCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023)2020808—
NL NetherlandsMeertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017)—758#2,471
GY GuyanaGuyana — Official List of Electors July 20252025702#116
BR BrazilIBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror)2022663—
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—657#10,996

Reference works 3

  • Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
  • Wikipedia given-name 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 · 1,054 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Steve?
We estimate roughly 2.0 million people bear Steve (counting its spellings and scripts) across 13 countries in our records.
In which country does Steve have the most bearers?
Steve is most frequently recorded in the United Kingdom, where it is most often spelled stephen.
Where is Steve most common?
Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Steve is densest in Romania — about 1 in 69 people — even though United Kingdom holds more of our records for it.
How common is Steve compared with other names?
In the United Kingdom, Steve is the 6th most common given name of 369,273 given names recorded there.
Is Steve a male or female name?
Steve is recorded for both men and women. We don't publish a percentage split: a record's gender belongs to the person and is attached to every given name on that record, so names in cultures where a name string also carries a parent's or spouse's given name pick up large cross-gender counts.
What does the name Steve mean?
Recorded meaning: Short form of Stephen, from Greek Stephanos, “crown”; linked to St Stephen, feast day 26 Dec.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/steve

The 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

● measured from records◐ inferred from the name graph○ machine-generated

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, “Steve” — the 6th most common given name in United Kingdom. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Steve parses inside a full name →