Phyllis
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Greek, ‘leafy’. Ancient name popular in England c
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/fɪlɪs/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Phyllis is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- IEIreland≈1 in 1.1K(inferred from the name graph)
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 1.2K
- SGSingapore≈1 in 1.2K
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.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- #614 (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 504 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.1K (inferred from the name graph)
≈1,300,000 people, est.
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
China, est.
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)
Greek, ‘leafy’. Ancient name popular in England c. late 18th/early 19th century; exported from there to Ireland.
Sources 1
- Irish first names
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
Often considered alongside
Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Phyllis, 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)
Phyllis 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈1,300,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.1K | — | Phyllis | 32 |
| US United States | #249 | 165,949 | 1 in 2K | 166K | Phyllis | 504 |
| MM Myanmar (Burma) | #462 | ≈49,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.2K | — | Phyllis | 6 |
| GB United Kingdom | #289 | ≈48,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.4K | 413 | Phyllis | 173 |
| IT Italy | #381 | ≈32,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.9K | — | Phyllis | 30 |
| SG Singapore | #137 | ≈5,200 est. | ≈1 in 1.2K | — | Phyllis | 91 |
| IE Ireland | #167 | ≈4,600 est. | ≈1 in 1.1K | listed | Phyllis | 53 |
| NZ New Zealand | #197 | ≈4,200 est. | ≈1 in 1.2K | 12 | Phyllis | 65 |
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; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present); the irish-first-names-coghlan-1985 register. 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)
Phyllis is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In French, Greek origin; from Phyllis, related to phyllon 'leaf' or a mythological name.
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
Name of a minor character in Greek mythology who killed herself for love and was transformed into an almond tree; the Greek word phyllis means ‘foliage’, so clearly her name doomed her from the start.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In English, A girl who killed herself for love, and was turned into an almond tree.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In French, From Greek; means “foliage, leafage”.
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
In English, A green bough or branch
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
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)
- Phyllis Dillerb. 1917USAmerican stand-up comedian, actress, author, musician, and visual artist (1917–2012)
- P. D. Jamesb. 1920GBnot in their usual nameEnglish crime writer (1920-2014)
- Phyllis Schlaflyb. 1924USAmerican conservative activist (1924-2016)
- Phyllis Coatesb. 1927USAmerican actress (1927–2023)
- Phyllis Somervilleb. 1943USAmerican stage, film and television actress (1943–2020)
- Jessica Langeb. 1949USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress
- Phyllis Smithb. 1949USAmerican actress
- Phyllis Georgeb. 1949USAmerican businesswoman, actress, and sportscaster (1949-2020)
- Phyllis Loganb. 1956GBScottish actress
- Phyllis Nagyb. 1962USAmerican writer and director
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)
Attested in 57 sources across 34 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 166K | #333 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 204 | #333 |
| NZ New Zealand | DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present) | 1976 | 11 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 7 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1971 | 7 | — |
| GB United Kingdom | NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present) | 1979 | 4 | #464 |
| GB United Kingdom | NISRA — Baby names Northern Ireland full list (1997–present) | 2014 | — | — |
| GB United Kingdom | A Concise Dictionary of First Names (Hanks & Hodges, 2001) | — | — | — |
| IE Ireland | Irish First Names (Coghlan, 1985) | — | — | — |
| GB United Kingdom | The Penguin Book of Baby Names (David Pickering) | — | — | — |
Reference works 4
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- 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
- Is Phyllis a male or female name?
- Phyllis is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- Where does the name Phyllis come from?
- Greek, ‘leafy’. Ancient name popular in England c. late 18th/early 19th century; exported from there to Ireland. Recorded by Irish first names.
- What are other forms of the name Phyllis?
- In the etymology graph, Filiz, PhyLiss and Phillis are forms of the same name in other languages.
- What does the name Phyllis mean?
- Recorded meaning: Greek, ‘leafy’. Ancient name popular in England c.
- How do you pronounce Phyllis?
- A machine transcription gives /fɪlɪs/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Phyllis have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 1.3 million people named Phyllis in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled phyllis.
- How common is the name Phyllis?
- In the United States, the national register counted 165,949 people named Phyllis in 2020, about 1 in 2.0 thousand residents.
- How common is Phyllis compared with other names?
- In Singapore, Phyllis is the 137th most common given name of 52,448 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Phyllis?
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/phyllisThe 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, “Phyllis” — the 137th most common given name in Singapore. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.