Philip
About 345,173 American babies have been named Philip since 1880, most of them around 1953. In 2025 it ranked 527th. About 208,000 Philips are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 56.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Philip boys named Philip
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 345,173
- Estimated living today
- 208,000
- Median age today
- 56
- Peak year
- 1953
- Best rank
- 61st
- Rank in 2025
- 527th
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 1,137 / 344,036
How old the living Philips are
born that year still alive today
Of the 345,173 babies given the name since 1880, about 208,000 are alive — 60 in every hundred. Roughly 12,000 of them are children and 72,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1969 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
Origin Ancient Greek
From Middle English Philip, ultimately from Ancient Greek Φίλιππος, name of ancient kings of Macedonia, from φίλιππος (“fond of horses”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Philips
- Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1921–2021)consort of Elizabeth II from 1952 to 2021
- Philip II of Spain (1527–1598)King of Spain, Portugal, Naples and Sicily; King consort of England, lived 1527-1598
- Philip K. Dick (1928–1982)American science fiction author
- Philip II of Macedon (385 BC–335 BC)King of Macedon from 359 to 336 BC
- Philip Seymour Hoffman (1967–2014)American actor
- Philip Roth (1933–2018)American novelist
- Philip IV of France (1268–1314)King of France from 1285 to 1314
- Philip IV of Spain (1605–1665)King of Spain and Portugal
People named Philip with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Philip is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Philip is most concentrated in Maine (3.0×), Massachusetts (2.2×), Vermont (2.1×), New Hampshire (2.0×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1953
The most popular boys’ names the year Philip peaked:
Philip elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ireland boys | Philip | 8,816 | 36th |
| New Zealand boys | Philip | 7,036 | 20th |
| Denmark boys | Philip | 6,884 | 29th |
| England and Wales boys | Philip | 5,068 | 103rd |
| Norway boys | Philip | 3,488 | 68th |
| Austria boys | Philip | 2,818 | 41st |
| Scotland boys | Philip | 2,491 | 56th |
| France boys | Philip | 1,535 | 199th |
| Poland boys | Philip | 945 birth registrations | 142nd |
| Switzerland boys | Philip | 614 | 178th |
| Northern Ireland boys | Philip | 429 | 51st |
| Italy boys | Philip | 335 | — |
| Belgium boys | Philip | 201 | 401st |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Philip: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German boys | Switzerland | Philip | 548 | 0.044% | 128th |
| French boys | Switzerland | Philip | 48 | 0.011% | 372nd |
| Italian boys | Switzerland | Philip | 18 | 0.028% | 97th |
Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.
By canton, Philip is most concentrated in Thurgau, where 0.06% of children were given it – 32 of them.
Philip: rank by region
In 2018, Philip was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Philip | 870 | 5 |
In 2025, Philip was given 2 times or more in 1 region of Poland.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mazowieckie | Philip | 312 | 2 |
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Poland below 2 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Philip by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin boys | 2017–2023 | 86 | 162nd |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Philip among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| the Netherlands boys | Philip | 3,702 | 8,335 |
| Finland boys | Philip | 367 | 690 |
| the Netherlands girls | Philip | — | 44 |
A count of people on a register – the Netherlands on 1 January 2018, Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Where Philip lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 541 men called Philip were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Men: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alicante/Alacant | Philip | 103 | 0.102 | 770 |
| Málaga | Philip | 70 | 0.080 | 745 |
| Santa Cruz de Tenerife | Philip | 32 | 0.060 | 1,375 |
| Palmas, Las | Philip | 31 | 0.053 | 1,504 |
| Almería | Philip | 19 | 0.048 | 1,243 |
| Balears, Illes | Philip | 27 | 0.043 | 1,327 |
Listed in 17 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 35 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Philip against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.