Steve
- Pronunciation
- [Steve]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Abbreviation Of Steven And Stephen Often Used As An Independent Name. Stevie Is Also Used For Girls.
- Origin
- English
About the Name Steve
Steve is the popular short form of Steven or Stephen, which descend through Latin and Greek from the ancient Greek Stephanos meaning crown or wreath — an image of honour and achievement. It emerged as an independent given name from this longer tradition, carrying all the casual confidence of a nickname worn as a first name. Its single syllable and voiceless consonant ending gave it a clipped, decisive sound that felt quintessentially mid-century American.
Several notable bearers have defined the name across different fields. Steve Spurrier (born 1945) is an American Hall of Fame former college football quarterback and head coach whose career produced one Heisman Trophy in 1966 and one NCAA Division I-A national championship. Steve Perry (born 1949) is an American singer and songwriter whose career — primarily as the lead singer of Journey from 1977 to 1987 and 1995 to 1998 — produced one of the foundational bodies of American arena rock. Steve Wozniak (born 1950) is an American electrical engineer and entrepreneur and one of the co-founders of Apple Computer Inc. Steve Earle (born 1955) is an American country, rock, and folk singer-songwriter whose four-decade career has produced multiple defining late-1980s and 1990s American country-and-rock recordings, including his 1988 album Copperhead Road. Steve Jobs (born 1955) was an American businessman, industrial designer, and co-founder of Apple Inc., one of the defining figures of late-20th and early-21st-century consumer electronics. Steve Nash (born 1974) is a Canadian Hall of Fame former professional basketball player whose 18-year NBA career produced two NBA Most Valuable Player Awards in 2005 and 2006.
In US Social Security records, Steve entered the top-1000 in 1943 and peaked at #41 in 1959, accumulating more than 167,000 top-1000 births. It exited the chart in 2016 with 205 births at #997. The one recorded variant is Stevie.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Steve
US Popularity History (1943–2016)
Annual US births named Steve by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1959 with 11,067 boys named Steve (boy rank #41 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2016, ranked #997 for boys (205 US births). That's 956 places below its 1959 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 Steve 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 Steve the strongest states are New Jersey, California, Maryland.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New Jersey | #758 | 33 |
| 2 | California | #809 | 270 |
| 3 | Maryland | #860 | 16 |
| 4 | Arizona | #949 | 16 |
| 5 | Florida | #1,060 | 50 |
| 6 | New York | #1,068 | 69 |
| 7 | Texas | #1,282 | 59 |
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Texas | #1,282 | 59 |
| 2 | New York | #1,068 | 69 |
| 3 | Florida | #1,060 | 50 |
| 4 | Arizona | #949 | 16 |
| 5 | Maryland | #860 | 16 |
| 6 | California | #809 | 270 |
| 7 | New Jersey | #758 | 33 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Steve in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stevie | Abbreviation Of Steven And Stephen Often Used As An Independent Name. Stevie Is Also Used For Girls. | Male | English |
Famous People Named Steve
7 notable figures from history and culture who share the name Steve.
- Steve Chen — Entrepreneur (1978)
- Steve Earle — Rock Singer (1955)
- Steve Jobs — Entrepreneur (1955)
- Steve Nash — Basketball Player (1974)
- Steve Perry — Rock Singer (1949)
- Steve Spurrier — Coach (1945)
- Steve Wozniak — Entrepreneur (1950)
Looking for names like Steve?
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 Steve to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Steve 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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