Stephanie Is Not in the Bible — but Stephen, the First Martyr, Is

Stephanie is not in the Bible, but Stephen, the name it comes from, is. Stephanie is the feminine of Stephen, from the Greek stephanos, “crown” or “wreath,” and Saint Stephen, whose death is told in Acts 7, was the first Christian martyr.

What does Stephanie mean?

Stephanie means “crown” or “wreath.” It is the feminine of Stephen, from the Greek Stephanos, whose root sense is “that which surrounds.” A stephanos was the wreath of leaves given to the winner of a contest, as opposed to a king’s diadem, for which Greek had a different word.

English took the name from the French Stéphanie. Other forms include Estefanía in Spanish, Stefania in Italian and Stefanie in German.

Is Stephanie in the Bible?

Not as Stephanie. The masculine Stephen appears in Acts 6 and 7, and Paul mentions a related Greek name, Stephanas, whose household were “the first converts in Achaia” (1 Corinthians 16:15).

Saint Stephen, the first martyr

Stephen first appears as one of seven men the church in Jerusalem chose to oversee the daily distribution of food to widows. Luke calls him “a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 6:5). Accused of speaking against the temple and the law, he was brought before the council and answered with a long account of Israel’s history, from Abraham to Solomon’s temple (Acts 7).

His hearers dragged him out of the city and stoned him, and “the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.” As the stones fell, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Then he knelt and cried out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them” (Acts 7:58-60), a prayer close to the words of Jesus on the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). Luke adds that “Saul approved of their killing him” (Acts 8:1). That Saul became the apostle Paul. The Church keeps Stephen’s feast on 26 December, and the Eastern churches on 27 December.

The crown in the New Testament

The word in Stephanie’s name appears often in the New Testament. Paul writes that athletes compete “to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever” (1 Corinthians 9:25), and in 2 Timothy: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness” (2 Timothy 4:7-8). It is also the word used for the crown of thorns that the soldiers “twisted together” and set on the head of Jesus (Matthew 27:29).

Related reading

• Nicole Is Not in the Bible — but Nicolas Is, in Acts 6
• Lawrence Is Not in the Bible — It Means “From Laurentum”
• Is Your Name in the Bible? A Directory of 231 Names