Phyllis
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- A Green Branch.
- Origin
- Greek
About the Name Phyllis
Phyllis comes from the ancient Greek phyllis, meaning "a green branch" or "foliage" — specifically leafy, budding growth associated with springtime renewal. In Greek mythology, Phyllis was a Thracian princess whose story of faithful love became a popular subject in classical poetry and, later, Renaissance literature. That mythological pedigree gave the name literary respectability across centuries of European writing, which helped it circulate through educated English-speaking households long before it reached mass American usage.
The name does not appear in the US Social Security top-1000 until 1915, from which point it rose with remarkable speed to peak in 1929 at rank #24. That arc — rising through the 1910s and 1920s to a late-Jazz-Age high — places Phyllis firmly in the cohort of names that defined American feminine fashion in the interwar years, alongside Pearl, Mildred, and Marjorie. Its total top-1000 births across the tracked run exceed 278,000, a substantial figure that reflects genuine generational dominance. The name remained in the top-1000 through 1958, appearing that final year at rank #94 with over 5,000 births — a long and graceful exit rather than an abrupt fall.
Today Phyllis is primarily encountered among women born between roughly 1915 and the early 1950s, which gives it a distinctly mid-century grandmotherly warmth. Its botanical meaning — leafy green growth, the vitality of a spring branch — has an earthy appeal that connects it to contemporary nature-naming trends from an unusual angle. The name carries no recorded variants in the naming record.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Phyllis
US Popularity History (1915–1958)
Annual US births named Phyllis by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1947 with 9,187 girls named Phyllis (girl rank #37 that year).
Where it stands today: in 1958, ranked #94 for girls (5,083 US births). That's 57 places below its 1947 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 Phyllis Most Popular?
Average girl-name rank within each state across 1958–1967 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's girls-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Phyllis the strongest states are North Carolina, Arkansas, Georgia.
Strongest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | North Carolina | #55 | 1,995 |
| 2 | Arkansas | #58 | 715 |
| 3 | Georgia | #61 | 1,778 |
| 4 | Alabama | #63 | 1,220 |
| 5 | Tennessee | #65 | 1,266 |
| 6 | Louisiana | #69 | 1,255 |
| 7 | South Carolina | #71 | 796 |
| 8 | Mississippi | #72 | 821 |
| 9 | Virginia | #73 | 862 |
| 10 | Florida | #74 | 828 |
Weakest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Texas | #95 | 797 |
| 2 | Missouri | #87 | 494 |
| 3 | Oklahoma | #80 | 264 |
| 4 | Maryland | #79 | 404 |
| 5 | Kentucky | #78 | 803 |
| 6 | District of Columbia | #77 | 183 |
| 7 | Florida | #74 | 828 |
| 8 | Virginia | #73 | 862 |
| 9 | Mississippi | #72 | 821 |
| 10 | South Carolina | #71 | 796 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 1958–1967. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Phyllis in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Looking for names like Phyllis?
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 Phyllis to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Phyllis against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).