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Geneanet > Resources > Family Names > PHILIP

Origin and popularity of the name PHILIP

Origin

Philip : 1: Scottish English German Dutch and Jewish: from the Greek personal name Philippos (from philein ‘to love’ + hippos ‘horse’). In the New Testament this name is borne by one of the apostles; it was also borne by various other early Christian saints. It owes part of its popularity to the medieval romances about Alexander the Great whose father was Philip of Macedon. As a Jewish name it represents a borrowing of the personal name from Christians. As a Highland Scottish surname it represents an Anglicized form of Gaelic Mac Fhilib ‘son of Philip’. In North America the English form of the surname has absorbed cognates from other languages e.g. Spanish Felipe Catalan Felip Polish Czech Slovak Slovenian or Croatian Filip Albanian Filipi and their derivatives (see examples at Philips). The name Philip is also found among Christians in southern India (compare Philipose and Pothen) but since South Indians traditionally do not have hereditary surnames the southern Indian name was in most cases registered as such only after immigration of its bearers to the US. Compare Phillip.2: French (southern) and Breton (Finistère): variant of Philippe.

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Source : DAFN2 : Dictionary of American Family Names 2nd edition, ©2022 by Patrick Hanks and Oxford University Press
FANBI : The Oxford Dictionary if Family Names in Britain and Ireland, ©2016, University of the West of England
FANBI : The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain, ©2021, University of the West of England

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Last name frequency

Geographic distribution of the 106,618 individuals with the name PHILIP on Geneanet.

 

Most found places for the name PHILIP:

    This last name in the family trees

    See below the Geneanet members' family trees which contain the last name PHILIP

    genequeyras
    (2,820 individuals)
    mejimbert
    (2,340 individuals)
    imbert1941
    (2,156 individuals)
    cphilip
    (886 individuals)

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