Philemon
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in English: The eighteenth book of the New Testament of the Bible, the epistle of Saint Paul to a fellow Christian called Philemon
A male name· listed as male by the registers that count names by sex
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 29 countries · latest register: SSA, 2025
/filɛmɔn/(machine-generated) Swahili · model-generated
Philemon is a male given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Kenya than in any other country.
- KEKenya≈1 in 3.4K(inferred from the name graph)
- TZTanzania≈1 in 4.8K
- ZASouth Africa≈1 in 6.3K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Countries with no figure are shown too: flat where a national register lists the name without counting it, hatched where only our records hold it. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Kenya (inferred from the name graph)
- Record sources
- 111 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 3.4K (inferred from the name graph)
≈17,000 people, est.
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Kenya, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts
(measured from records)Locally spelled Philémon in CD Congo - Kinshasa.
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)Philemon is a classic and rare biblical name of Greek origin, meaning "loving" or "affectionate." Associated with the themes of forgiveness and brotherhood from the New Testament, it's a name with deep historical and spiritual significance, perfect for a boy with a kind and warm heart.
Cited for this meaning 1
- Biblical Names Compiled Database
Attested across 10 languages in the etymology graph.
How Philemon is read
(measured from records)Philemon is one spelling over 3 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- Swahili48%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Philemon in Swahili.
- English32%
The eighteenth book of the New Testament of the Bible, the epistle of Saint Paul to a fellow Christian called Philemon.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
New Testament book; pers. name
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
- French7.0%
Origine grecque, signifie « seul ami ».
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Philemon counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KE Kenya | #284 | ≈17,000 est. | ≈1 in 3.4K | — | Philemon | 38 |
| TZ Tanzania | #620 | ≈14,000 est. | ≈1 in 4.8K | — | Philemon | 30 |
| NG Nigeria | — | ≈13,000 est. | ≈1 in 17K | — | Philemon | 47 |
| CD Congo - Kinshasa | — | ≈12,000 est. | ≈1 in 9.4K | — | Philémon | 7 |
| ZA South Africa | — | ≈10,000 est. | ≈1 in 6.3K | — | Philemon | 38 |
| US United States | — | 754 | 1 in 441K | 750 | Philemon | 111 |
| VC St. Vincent & Grenadines | — | ≈9 est. | ≈1 in 12K | 10 | — | — |
Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Electoral Office of St Vincent & the Grenadines — Final Voters List (Nov 2025). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses
(measured from records)Philemon is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
Philemon is a classic and rare biblical name of Greek origin, meaning "loving" or "affectionate." Associated with the themes of forgiveness and brotherhood from the New Testament, it's a name with deep historical and spiritual significance, perfect for a boy with a kind and warm heart.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
The name Philemon is of Greek origin (Φιλήμων, Philḗmōn) and means "loving" or "affectionate." It is derived from the Greek verb "philein" (φιλεῖν), meaning "to love," and is related to the noun "philema" (φίλημα), meaning "kiss."
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
In Latin, Philemon (a pious rustic, the husband of Baucis, who gave hospitality to Zeus)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name
(measured from records)- Philemonb. 360IT4th-century BC Athenian poet of New Comedy
- Philemon Hollandb. 1552GBEnglish schoolmaster, physician, and Classics translator
- Philemon Dickinsonb. 1739USAmerican politician
- Philemon Wrightb. 1760USCanadian businessman (1760-1839)
- Philemon Thomasb. 1763USAmerican politician (1763-1847)
- Philemon Beecherb. 1776USAmerican politician (1776-1839)
- Philemon Dickersonb. 1788USAmerican politician (1788-1862)
- Philemon Blissb. 1813USAmerican politician (1813-1889)
- James Philemon Holcombeb. 1820USAmerican politician (1820–1873)
- Philemon T. Herbertb. 1825USConfederate Army officer (1825–1864)
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them
(machine-generated)A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence
(measured from records)48 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 29 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 750 | #15,306 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 10 | — |
| VC St. Vincent & Grenadines | Electoral Office of St Vincent & the Grenadines — Final Voters List (Nov 2025) | 2025 | 10 | #137 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 4 | #15,306 |
Reference works 2
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- Where does the name Philemon come from?
- Philemon is a classic and rare biblical name of Greek origin, meaning "loving" or "affectionate." Associated with the themes of forgiveness and brotherhood from the New Testament, it's a name with dee… Recorded by Biblical Names Compiled Database.
- What are other forms of the name Philemon?
- In the etymology graph, Filimon is a form of the same name in other languages.
- How do you pronounce Philemon?
- It depends on the language: in Swahili /filɛmɔn/; in English /fɪˈliːmɒn/ (Wiktionary). Transcriptions are machine-generated except where a dictionary is named.
- Is Philemon a male or female name?
- Philemon is a male name. National registers that list it by sex list it as male: France (INSEE, 2011), United States (Census Bureau, 2020) and Netherlands (Meertens NVB).
- What does the name Philemon mean?
- In English, The eighteenth book of the New Testament of the Bible, the epistle of Saint Paul to a fellow Christian called Philemon.
- In which country does Philemon have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 17 thousand people named Philemon in Kenya, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled philemon.
- How common is the name Philemon?
- In the United States, the national register counted 754 people named Philemon in 2020, about 1 in 441 thousand residents.
- How common is Philemon compared with other names?
- In Kenya, Philemon is the 284th most common given name of 56,552 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Philemon?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/philemonThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Philemon” — the 284th most common given name in Kenya. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.