Philip

Philip: a Greek name meaning friend of horses

Philip means “friend of horses,” from Greek Philippos. Its elements combine philos, “friend” or “lover,” with hippos, “horse.” English says FILL-ip, with two syllables and the emphasis at the beginning.

The name has a long royal and religious history, from ancient Macedonia to medieval Europe. Composer Philip Glass gives it a distinct modern association through opera and other music, including his collaboration with Robert Wilson on Einstein on the Beach.

Kings, saints, and the older name

Five kings of Macedonia bore forms of Philip, including Philip II, the father of Alexander the Great. The Greek compound therefore belonged to an established personal name well before its later Christian use.

The New Testament includes Philip the apostle and another early Christian figure usually known as Philip the Deacon. These separate bearers helped give the name a lasting place in religious naming.

Initially more familiar among Eastern Christians, Philip spread into Western Europe by the Middle Ages. It became a royal name in France and Spain and was regularly used in medieval England, before a later revival in the nineteenth century.

Philip Glass and Einstein on the Beach

Philip Glass created Einstein on the Beach with theater artist Robert Wilson. Premiered at the Festival d’Avignon in July 1976, it brought together ensemble, chorus, soloists, actors, and stage images on an unusually large scale.

The work has four acts and lasts about four and a half hours. Rather than telling a conventional sequence of events from Einstein’s life, it uses a non-narrative form, allowing music and theatrical images to suggest ideas associated with its subject.

Glass’s score and Wilson’s staging formed a collaborative whole. The work can be presented through the original production or through a new sequence of stage and dance images related to Einstein, giving its musical structure a continuing theatrical life.

It became the first part of a trilogy concerned with figures whose ideas changed the world. This gives Philip a particularly concrete musical association: the full name Philip Glass is attached to an experiment in how opera can work beyond familiar plot-driven storytelling.

Pronunciation and related forms

FILL-ip begins with an f sound, despite the written ph, and uses the short i heard in “sit.” The final syllable is lighter, with the same basic vowel quality in many English pronunciations.

Phil is an established short form. Phillip is a related English spelling, while French Philippe, Spanish Felipe, and Italian Filippo show the name’s different European developments. Their written forms preserve the same older horse-loving compound through different language histories.

Popularity in the United States

Philip reached its best American boys’ rank in 1941, at number fifty-two. Its largest annual count came in 1953, with 6,279 births.

It ranked 433rd in 2015, 453rd in 2020, and 528th in 2025. Its largest American generation belongs to the mid-twentieth century, within a personal-name history stretching back to ancient Greece.

How popular is Philip?

In 2025, Philip ranked #528 among boys in the United States, with 568 recorded uses. The U.S. birth records first list this spelling for boys in 1880; its largest annual count was 6,279 in 1953. Rankings count each spelling separately. They describe national use, so local familiarity can differ. The popularity chart shows whether the name has remained common, returned after a quieter period, or risen recently.