I’ve been assuming that the given name “Steven” is not so much an alternate spelling of “Stephen,” but a back-formation (and therefore a kind of mistake). Is there any historical support for the notion that “Steve” emerged as a nickname for “Stephen” (as opposed to “Steph,” which I’ve never heard) and at some point after that nickname emerged, people started spelling the name with a “v” rather than a “ph”?
I’ve assumed this to be true, but I don’t know if it is correct or just a logical conjecture.
Also, does anyone pronounce “Stephen” as “Stefen,” with the first “e” given a short sound (and the second “e” a schwa)? I’ve heard it pronounced only as “Steven” with a long ee sound (Steeven).
Basketball star Steph Curry is short for Stephen Curry. I’ve been Steven all my life, and my parents told me it was the modern version of Stephen. I’ve never heard any other explanation before.
Er… what about Saint Stephen? Not that he was particularly English [but there are people named after him]. I met a Stephanie once, think she was American.
I’ve always assumed that Stephen could be pronounced with “ph” (not “f”) or with “v” - the two sounds can be very close. As opposed to Steven being pronounced with “v” only.
“ph” would be pronounced with the two lips, while “v” and “f” use lower lip and teeth - at least, the way I learned to speak. It seems that it’s a matter of choice or regionalism or accent or speech laziness/shift…
I was unaware of his name being pronounced anything other than with a ‘v’ in English. I’ve only read it and heard it in the song where it rhymes with “even”.
My dad is a Stephen. Back when he was maybe 10 in the 50’s, there was some semi-local kid’s show where the announcer would read off birthday wishes to kids whose parents or whomever had mailed the show a notice of the birthday. The guy pronounced dad’s name as “Steffen,” and it angered dad enough that from then on, he spelled his name “Steven” until he was in high school, and went back to the original spelling.
Names can be spelt and pronounced in any way people want. I had a colleague called Steffan. He was English but I think he had German relatives, or maybe not.
My real first name is “Stephen”, pronounced “Steven”. Recently someone in a professional setting asked me if it was pronounced “Steven” or “Steffen”, which I found odd. Evidently there are (or he thought there were) people who used the “Steffen” pronunciation. I’ve never encountered any of these myself. The closest I’ve found is people who spell the name “Stefan”
As for the pronunciation, I never looked into it before, but this page of discussions makes the case that the “v” pronunciation, far from being a recent American innovation, is a long-standing British pronunciation, and that it’s the “ph” spelling that’s the anachronistic holdover
It might be an accent or regionalism , because for me , “ph” and “f” are pronounced the same.
As far as the names go , it seems to depend on the person. Most people I know with the “ph” version pronounce it “Steven” but there are a few who pronounce it “Steffen” . Those are mainly people whose parents’ first language was not English and that language used an “f” version.
Considering that it’s all derived from “Stephanos”, I’m guessing that it went “Stephanos” in Greek to “Stephen” in English, and once it was being pronounced as “Steven”, the spelling followed. I’m also suspecting that the “ph/f”->“v” pronunciation change was LONG ago- there are other examples of similar things going on, especially with plurals. Loaf → Loaves, leaf → leaves, etc…
Now whether “Steven” is modern or a mistake, I can’t say.
I encountered one last month. American, from the NYC burbs. A college student, being advised as to which classes to take. His mom was furious that I pronounced it Steeven and yelled that it was Steffen, that there was no v in the name, so why did people keep pronouncing it wrong? She was in a combative mood. I didn’t think there was any use in telling her that most people pronounce it Steeven, so just said “Ok, how are you Steffen” and otherwise ignored her.
I’m confused by this. I’ve not heard “ph” to be pronounced differently than “f” (except in transliterations where “ph” refers to an aspirated “p.”) I’ve only heard them as /f/ in most cases. What’s the difference for you? Like, for me “photo” and “foto” would be pronounced exactly the same (were the latter an English word.)
Staff → stave (in a music textbook). [That one might be a back-formation? But “staffes” morphing into “staves” seems to be happening in Middle English already]
Stiff → steeve (Scots?? OED says steeve in the nautical sense is doubtfully connected to stiff, but may have to do with the root of staff)
“Grimm’s Law”
has
bʰ → b → p → f
dʰ → d → t → θ
gʰ → g → k → x
gʷʰ → gʷ → kʷ → xʷ
in Indo-European. Also, High German consonant shift - Wikipedia
has /β/ > /b/ (sealf → salve but Salbe in German, for example). “Unshifted languages retained a fricative, which became /v/ between vowels and /f/ in coda position.” which seems pretty close to the Stephen → Steven phenomenon)
It seems like you’re describing the unvoiced bilabial fricative /ɸ/, which I didn’t think existed in English. Spanish has the voiced bilabial fricative /β/, typically spelled with a “b” or “v”. I don’t know French enough to know if they have it.
My husband’s name is Stephen (pronounced Steven). He introduces himself as, and calls himself Steve.
A couple hundred years ago, when we were first dating, I called him Steve. But I soon came to the point where I thought Stephen was a beautiful name, and I have called him Stephen (Steven) ever since.
He’s never been crazy about his name, and when we were building our family, he was adamant about NOT having Junior.