9BabyNames Baby names with meanings & US popularity data

Stephanie

Gender
Female
Meaning
Crowned In Victory
Origin
French

About the Name Stephanie

Stephanie is the French feminine form of Stephen (see separate entry on Stephen for the Greek Stephanos etymology meaning "crown" or "wreath" and the Saint Stephen first-Christian-martyr anchor). The French Stephanie has been used continuously across French-Catholic naming traditions for centuries.

Notable bearers include American actress Stephanie Beatriz (born 1981, the Argentine-American actress of Brooklyn Nine-Nine); American singer Stephanie Mills (born 1957, the iconic African-American R&B singer); and Princess Stephanie of Monaco (born 1965, daughter of Prince Rainier III and Princess Grace).

Stephanie held a US top-25 girls' rank from 1968 through 1995 — about three decades of consistent American popularity, peaking around 1986 at #6 in the United States. The name has receded since but remains in steady use, currently sitting in the US top 300 girls' rank. The name's appeal is its layered Greek-Catholic-French pedigree combined with three flowing syllables — the in-built Christian-martyr religious register, the strong American mid-1980s and 1990s cultural-nostalgia anchor, and the elegant French sophistication. Common nicknames Steph (the dominant warm short form, casual and adult), Stephie, Steffi, and the rare Annie (back-end shortening) each carry distinct registers; the alternate spellings Stephany, Stefanie, Stefani, and Stephanie have their own SSA tracking. International forms include Stéphanie (French original, with accent), Stefania (Italian/Polish), Estefanía (Spanish), and the broader Stephen/Stephanos family.

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

Quick Facts About Stephanie

1,414
French baby names in our dictionary
843
French female names
83
9-letter S-names in our dictionary
481
S-female names total
1960–2025
years of US SSA records (66 total)
690,919
total US births named Stephanie (all years)

US Popularity History (1960–2025)

📉 Falling fast: Stephanie dropped 119 places in the US girls ranking over the last 5 years (#438 in 2020 → #557 in 2025).

Annual US births named Stephanie by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1990 with 24,864 girls named Stephanie (girl rank #7 that year).

Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #557 for girls (543 US births). That's 550 places below its 1990 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 Stephanie Most Popular?

Average girl-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 girls-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Stephanie the strongest states are California, Texas, Maryland.

Strongest girls-name states

# State Avg rank Births
1 California #245 1,504
2 Texas #284 1,152
3 Maryland #292 201
4 Florida #295 626
5 Nevada #308 88
6 New Mexico #346 24
7 New York #357 521
8 Illinois #361 321
9 Arizona #363 192
10 New Jersey #381 242

Weakest girls-name states

# State Avg rank Births
1 Louisiana #813 46
2 Ohio #787 110
3 Missouri #736 49
4 Michigan #734 95
5 Minnesota #720 53
6 Wisconsin #669 60
7 Pennsylvania #644 153
8 Alabama #600 63
9 Kentucky #587 65
10 Utah #568 48

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

Variant Forms

NameMeaningGenderOrigin
Stevie Abbreviation Of Steven And Stephen Often Used As An Independent Name. Stevie Is Also Used For Girls. Male English

Looking for names like Stephanie?

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 Stephanie to Other Popular Names

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

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Stephanie Baby Name Ideas