Actually, it is. Tolkien doesn’t determine how the plural of the commonly-used word [ui]elf* is done outside of his books. Check the dictionary.
I think the odds would have been better if she’d named him Joe.
Well, that doesn’t work. In Real Life, my first name is Stephen. Friends call me Steve, coworkers call me Stephen. (Because there were already two “Steves” in the department, one of whom also shares my last initial.) People who don’t know me pronounce the PH as an F.
My parents liked the “old-world” spelling variant, and if they were less conservative would have gone all the way to “Stephan.” I returned the favour by naming our first daughter “Stephanie.” (This also ties in with my Wife’s family tradition of having Juniors. I honestly believe there is no more than six first names among all my in-laws.)
My dad is named Stephen. My newphew is named after him. If it had been my choice, I still would have named the boy after Dad, but I would have spelled it Steven. Stephen just look…odd. Plus, there’s a pretty sizeable number of people who don’t know how to pronounce Stephen, and end up saying it as “Stefan.”
Originally, the name was pronounced /ˈkoʊlbərt/ in English; /koʊlˈbɛər/ came about much later.
The wikipediaarticle on Stephen/Steven only lists one pronunciation. (Also, I’m pretty sure my father would look at you funny if you said his name with an F sound.)
An interesting thing about that wikipedia article is that they claim that in Middle English the name was pronounced “step-hen”. No cite is given. Does that make sense? I’m not sure I believe that.
Him? He was last seen going to a funeral – some bloke named Finnegan.
Maybe you have better enunciation than I. When I saw it out loud, it inevitably drifts towards “Steven,” unless I am really concentrating on avoiding the “V” sound.
Me too! fistbump
I remember back in the glorious 1970’s when being called upon for the first time in grade school being asked if my name was spelled with a “v” or a “ph”. Nobody asks that anymore…
I liked the mystery!
I don’t think you should believe that. There are plenty of recordings online of experts reading the Prologue to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, where there is a -ph- in line 5 (Zephirus). I listened to one, which confirmed my opinion that it’s already -f-. At the very least, this means there’s scholarly disagreement, but I think you’re right and Wikipedia is wrong.
When Steve Urkel in Family Matters was his “cool” alter-ego, he called himself “Stefan”.
Proof positive that “Stefan” is a cooler name than “Steven.”
Wasn’t intervocalic /f/ in Old English pronounced [v]? Like it still is in Welsh? (Not precisely, because in Welsh <f> always stands for /v/ and <ff> stands for /f/, while in Old English <f> sounded like [f] except when it came between two vowels when it sounded like [v], IIRC.)
Random fact: the classical French equivalent of Stephen is Étienne, but in Quebec for some reason *Stéphane *is much more common.
Yes, Old English /v/ was an allophone of /f/ when between voiced elements, notably vowels. Welsh f is always /v/ in the modern language but the evolution of Welsh orthography is separate from what happened in English and so not really a useful comparison. In Old Welsh, both B and M can be /v/ in medial or final position, and in Middle Welsh U is just as likely to be /v/ as F is.
my real life name is stephen and no on in my entire life has pronounced it wrong.
Welcome to the SDMB, stef-AHN. It can be a life changing experience! 
What is 9W the answer to?
Und zo, Herr Wagner, do you schpell your name vit a V?
I know my first name is Steven.
Until I was an adult, I lived happily with the plural of roof being rooves. In Canada.
It was rooves in my family and rooves in my neighborhood. However, when I wrote rooves for a paper at work, I was pointed at, laughed at and poked with a stick.
So I shouted, “Fucketh thou off, varlets!”
Roofs be barbaric.