Stephen
The English spelling of a Greek name meaning "crown" or "wreath," a name Poland mostly knows through its own forms, Stefan and Szczepan. Fewer than 600 men here use this version, so most Poles have never met one.
Stephen Pronunciation
What Stephen means
Where Stephen comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
The name comes from the Greek stephanos, a word for a crown or a wreath, the kind pressed onto the head of a victor. Stephen is its English shape. In Christian memory the first bearer is Stephen the Protomartyr, stoned in Jerusalem and remembered on the day after Christmas. The Greek sense of the wreath sat close to that story, since a crown was also the reward promised to those who endured.
Polish took the name twice. From one root grew Stefan, smooth and Latinate; from the same root, by an older path, came Szczepan, which is the form that names the saint on the twenty-sixth of December. A child called Stefan and a man called Szczepan share an origin most Poles never pause over.
On a school register the name still reads plainly. Its meaning stays fixed: a wreath, a crown, stephanos.
How many people are named Stephen
1 in 37515 men in Poland is named Stephen. 569 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #1245 among male names.
Stephen's popularity over time
Fewer than 2 boys were given the name in 2025. It has been stable for a decade.
Stephen as a middle name
Stephen is a first name for 569 men in Poland and a middle name for another 328, a 63/37 split. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 387th, between Klaus (330) and Noah (327).
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#385 Jarema330
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#386 Klaus330
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#387 Stephen328
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#388 Noah327
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#389 Christoph325