Phillip
- Pronunciation
- [Phi-llip]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Fond Of Horses. One Of The Biblical 12 Apostles.
- Origin
- English
About the Name Phillip
Phillip is a modern American spelling variant of Philip (see separate entry on Philip for the Greek Phílippos etymology — composed of philos (loving) and hippos (horse) — yielding "lover of horses" — and the apostle Saint Philip anchor). The double-L Phillip spelling is essentially a 20th-century American variant.
The two spellings (Phillip and Philip) are tracked separately by SSA and represent the same underlying Greek name. The Phillip spelling specifically appeals to parents seeking a more visually distinctive form. Notable bearers using either spelling include the iconic British prince Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1921–2021, the longest-serving consort in British history); American basketball player Phillip Sutton; and contemporary American politician Phillip Brown.
Phillip held a US top-100 boys' rank from 1942 through 1990 — about five decades of consistent American popularity, peaking around 1980 at #93 in the United States. The name has receded since but remains in steady use, currently sitting in the US top 300 boys' rank. The name's appeal sits in three contemporary American naming preferences: the layered Greek-Christian-apostolic religious pedigree, the in-built apostolic-saint anchor, and the popular two-syllable -ip ending family (Phillip, Pip, Philip). Two firm syllables, soft consonants, and tonal versatility from rural-American to upwardly-mobile-American. The name reads as both classical-Greek and contemporary American. Common nicknames Phil (the dominant warm short form, casual and adult — also a popular standalone name on its own), Phi, Pip, Flip, and the rare Phlippy each carry distinct registers; the alternate spellings Phillip, Philip, and Filip (Slavic) have their own SSA tracking. International forms include Philippe (French), Filippo (Italian), Felipe (Spanish/Portuguese), Filip (Slavic), Philipp (German), and the original Greek Phílippos.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Phillip
US Popularity History (1937–2025)
Annual US births named Phillip by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1960 with 6,043 boys named Phillip (boy rank #66 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #651 for boys (425 US births). That's 585 places below its 1960 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Where in the US Is Phillip Most Popular?
Average boy-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's boys-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Phillip the strongest states are Alabama, New Mexico, West Virginia.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alabama | #328 | 155 |
| 2 | New Mexico | #350 | 26 |
| 3 | West Virginia | #355 | 22 |
| 4 | South Carolina | #359 | 130 |
| 5 | Idaho | #382 | 19 |
| 6 | Mississippi | #389 | 49 |
| 7 | Kentucky | #421 | 96 |
| 8 | North Carolina | #431 | 229 |
| 9 | Missouri | #434 | 131 |
| 10 | Nevada | #440 | 35 |
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New Jersey | #780 | 68 |
| 2 | New York | #728 | 166 |
| 3 | Massachusetts | #646 | 66 |
| 4 | Pennsylvania | #637 | 130 |
| 5 | Arizona | #602 | 102 |
| 6 | Texas | #596 | 475 |
| 7 | Iowa | #591 | 28 |
| 8 | Washington | #570 | 119 |
| 9 | California | #570 | 516 |
| 10 | Colorado | #559 | 91 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Phillip in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Philippe | Loves Horses | Male | French |
Looking for names like Phillip?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Phillip to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Phillip against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
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