Stef
given name · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Stef is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the Netherlands than in any other country.
- NLNetherlands1 in 3K(measured from records)
- BEBelgium≈1 in 3.4K
- DEGermany≈1 in 31K
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.
- Netherlands (measured from records)
- Sources
- 217 (measured from records)
- 1 in 3.0K (inferred from the name graph)
5,737 people
Highest-authority source
Netherlands
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin
No verified etymology recorded for this name yet — the entries below are drawn from usage statistics and the name graph.
Sources 1
Attested across 15 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Stef 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.
5,737 people counted by Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018). 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: Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018); Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register); INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000). 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)
Stef 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, A diminutive of the female given name Stephanie.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Icelandic, refrain, burden
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In ofs, staff, rod
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)
- Stef Wertheimerb. 1926DEIsraeli politician and businessman
- Stef Burnsb. 1959USAmerican guitarist
- Stef Blokb. 1964NLDutch politician
- Stef Penneyb. 1969GBBritish writer
- Stef Kamil Carlensb. 1970BEBelgian musician
- Gustaphb. 1980BEnot in their usual nameBelgian singer (born 1980)
- Stef Clementb. 1982NLroad bicycle racer
- Stef Aertsb. 1987BEBelgian actor
- Stef Sanjatib. 1995CAtransgender Canadian YouTuber with Waardenburg Syndrome
- Stef Dawsonb. 2000AUAustralian actress
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).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 30 sources across 18 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018) | — | 5.7K | #345 |
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017) | — | 5.4K | #661 |
| NL Netherlands | SVB Kindernamen — annual newborn name frequency (Wayback-recovered) | 2017 | 178 | #91 |
| NL Netherlands | SVB Kindernamen — annual newborn name frequency (Wayback-recovered) | 2016 | 162 | #100 |
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018) | — | 22 | #13,942 |
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017) | — | 10 | #28,743 |
| NL Netherlands | Babynamen — Lijst met meer dan 22.000 namen (Amelia King, 2020) | — | — | — |
Reference works 3
- Wikipedia given-name 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
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 Stef a male or female name?
- Stef is a male 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.
- What are other forms of the name Stef?
- In the etymology graph, Steven, Stephen and Steve are forms of the same name in other languages; it is recorded as a short form of Stefanus.
- In which country does Stef have the most bearers?
- In the Netherlands, the national register counted about 5.7 thousand people named Stef, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled stef.
- Where is Stef most common?
- Stef is densest in the Netherlands, where the national register counts about 1 in 3.0 thousand people carrying it.
- How common is the name Stef?
- In the Netherlands, the national register counted 5,737 people named Stef, about 1 in 3.0 thousand residents.
- How common is Stef compared with other names?
- In the Netherlands, Stef is the 364th most common given name of 101,916 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Stef?
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/stefThe 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, “Stef” — the 364th most common given name in Netherlands. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.