Phillips
surname · Latin script
Meaning: A surname originating as a patronymic derived from Philip
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/fʲiʎips/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Phillips is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country, where it is the 45th most common surname.
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 688(inferred from the name graph)
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 724
- USUnited States1 in 922
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- #226 (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 619 (measured from records)
- 1 in 166 (inferred from the name graph)
360,802 people, 2010
of 19M surnames
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
St. Vincent & Grenadines
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
A surname originating as a patronymic derived from Philip.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Often considered alongside
Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Phillips, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.
From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Phillips 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | #45 | 360,802 | 1 in 922 | 361K | Phillips | 619 |
| GB United Kingdom | #37 | ≈96,000 est. | ≈1 in 688 | 106K | Phillips | 360 |
| EG Egypt | #957 | ≈39,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.7K | — | Phillips | 31 |
| CA Canada | #41 | ≈39,000 est. | ≈1 in 962 | — | Phillips | 290 |
| IT Italy | #46 | ≈38,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.6K | — | Phillips | 49 |
| NZ New Zealand | #38 | ≈6,800 est. | ≈1 in 724 | — | Phillips | 149 |
| GY Guyana | — | 1,402 | 1 in 535 | 1.4K | — | 17 |
| VC St. Vincent & Grenadines | — | 610 | 1 in 166 | 610 | — | 8 |
| IS Iceland | #84 | ≈490 est. | ≈1 in 720 | listed | Phillips | 14 |
360,802 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. 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 — Surname Frequency 2010; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025; 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)
Phillips 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.
In English, ‘Son of Philip’.
as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
New York, Charleston, Philadelphia
as a nameDicionario Sefaradi De SobrenomesDictionary Of Sephardic Surnames Inclusive Cristaos-Novos, Conversos, Marranos, Italianos,…
In Irish, In modern times this English name has to some extent taken the place of Philbin. With the prefix Mac it is found in Cavan and Monaghan and there it is usually a branch of the Scottish clan MacDonnell of Keppoch
as a nameThe Surnames of Ireland
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)
- Sam Phillipsb. 1923USAmerican businessman, record executive, record producer and DJ (1923–2003)
- Siân Phillipsb. 1933GBBritish Actress
- Michelle Phillipsb. 1944USAmerican singer and actress
- William Daniel Phillipsb. 1948USphysics Nobel laureate
- Wendy Phillipsb. 1952USAmerican actress
- Ethan Phillipsb. 1955USAmerican actor
- Sally Phillipsb. 1970GBBritish actress
- Todd Phillipsb. 1970USAmerican filmmaker
- Peter Phillipsb. 1977GBson of Anne, Princess Royal (born 1977); nephew of Charles III; first grandchild of Elizabeth II
- Zara Tindallb. 1981GBnot in their usual nameBritish Olympic equestrian; daughter of Anne, Princess Royal
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)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 59 sources across 35 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 361K | #52 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 352K | #47 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 344K | #53 |
| GB United Kingdom | Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register) | 2002 | 106K | #42 |
| GY Guyana | Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025 | 2025 | 1.4K | #53 |
| VC St. Vincent & Grenadines | Electoral Office of St Vincent & the Grenadines — Final Voters List (Nov 2025) | 2025 | 610 | #24 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 7
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
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
- What does the name Phillips mean, and where does it come from?
- A surname originating as a patronymic derived from Philip. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- What are other forms of the name Phillips?
- In the etymology graph, Phelps is a form of the same name in other languages.
- How do you pronounce Phillips?
- A machine transcription gives /fʲiʎips/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Phillips have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 361 thousand people named Phillips, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled phillips.
- Where is Phillips most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Phillips is densest in St. Vincent & Grenadines — about 1 in 166 people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Phillips?
- In the United States, the national register counted 360,802 people named Phillips in 2010, about 1 in 922 residents.
- How common is Phillips compared with other names?
- In the United States, Phillips is the 45th most common surname of 6,282,806 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Phillips?
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/phillipsThe 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, “Phillips” — the 45th most common surname in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.