Stefan: Meaning of Baby Name Stefan

About the Name Stefan

Stefan is a German and broadly European form of Stephen, from the Greek stephanos, meaning "crown" or "wreath" — the victor's garland of the ancient world. That noble image of a crowning honor gives the name a distinguished, triumphant air, while its sleek Continental spelling lends it an effortless international polish. It has long been a favorite across Germany, Scandinavia, and Eastern Europe, where it carries both tradition and a cosmopolitan flair.

The name's appeal lies in that marriage of classical meaning and modern, cosmopolitan style: a name that is at once ancient and sophisticated. It feels distinguished without being stuffy, familiar yet a touch worldly, which has made it a graceful alternative to the more common English spelling. Its recorded variant is the Slavic form Stepan, which carries the same crowning meaning into a different linguistic tradition.

Stefan first entered the US Social Security top-1000 for boys in 2000, which was also its strongest year at rank #571, and it has remained in the rankings every year since, appearing at #1000 in 2024 after standing at #961 in 2023 and #951 in 2022. Across that long run it has been given to roughly 6,126 boys. Its enduring, decades-long presence marks Stefan as a refined, internationally beloved classic — crowned with both heritage and contemporary cool.

Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.

Quick Facts About Stefan

1,055

German baby names in our dictionary

584

German male names

322

6-letter S-names in our dictionary

691

S-male names total

2000–2024

years of US SSA records (24 total)

6,126

total US births named Stefan (all years)

US Popularity History (2000–2024)

📉 Falling fast: Stefan dropped 139 places in the US boys ranking over the last 5 years (#861 in 2019 → #1,000 in 2024).

Annual US births named Stefan by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2000 with 360 boys named Stefan (boy rank #571 that year).

Where it stands today: in 2024, ranked #1,000 for boys (225 US births). That's 429 places below its 2000 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.

Where in the US Is Stefan 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 Stefan the strongest states are Nevada, Illinois, Florida.

Strongest boys-name states

#	State	Avg rank	Births
1	Nevada	#519	17
2	Illinois	#580	165
3	Florida	#628	233
4	Wisconsin	#657	37
5	New Jersey	#668	71
6	Massachusetts	#670	35
7	Virginia	#720	39
8	New York	#727	182
9	Ohio	#760	47
10	Washington	#783	61

Weakest boys-name states

#	State	Avg rank	Births
1	Texas	#1,081	60
2	Georgia	#993	25
3	California	#905	249
4	Minnesota	#895	25
5	North Carolina	#892	45
6	Louisiana	#875	27
7	Pennsylvania	#874	41
8	Arizona	#874	31
9	Indiana	#856	41
10	Michigan	#838	63

Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Stefan in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.

Variant Forms

Name	Meaning	Gender	Origin
Stepan	Exalts	Male	Anglo

Looking for names like Stefan?

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.

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Compare Stefan to Other Popular Names

Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Stefan against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).

Stefan vs Liam 239,320 births since 2014

Stefan vs Noah 230,181 births since 2014

Stefan vs Oliver 164,076 births since 2014

Stefan vs William 159,918 births since 2014

Stefan vs James 157,850 births since 2014

Stefan vs Elijah 153,351 births since 2014

Stefan vs Benjamin 147,449 births since 2014

Stefan vs Lucas 141,302 births since 2014

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