English homophones
Stephen/Steven
"Stephen" (#3,030 written frequency) beats "Steven" (#4,800) in this 2-word /ˈstiːvən/ cluster. Size rank #133 of 1,007 English groups.
Data vintage
Frequency splits the cluster
These 2 spellings keep the same /ˈstiːvən/ reading, but written frequency splits them hard: "Stephen" leads at #3,030, with "Steven" trailing at #4,800.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- Shared stem "ste" then splits - "Stephen" (7 letters) vs "Steven" (6).
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across Stephen, Steven: enst. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
Stephen
7 letters · 2 vowels · shape CCVCCVC
Inventory ehnpst · private hp
Steven
6 letters · 2 vowels · shape CCVCVC
Inventory enstv · private v
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "Stephen" when you mean: The first Christian martyr.
- Write "Steven" when you mean: A male given name from Ancient Greek, variant of Stephen.
Known mistypes of these spellings
Edit-distance variants recorded against this cluster: useful when a search or OCR feed lands on the wrong form.
Each spelling
Nearby English homophone groups
What to do next
You've reviewed the 2-spelling cluster (Stephen, Steven). Here's where to go from here.
- "Stephen" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #3,030 in English). Full entry
- Among English homophone groups, a cluster of 2 spellings ranks #133 by size (1,007 groups in this vintage). Corpus statistics
- Explore a nearby 2-spelling cluster: Sunday · sundae. Nearby cluster
- Each spelling in "Stephen, Steven" has its own headword page with definition, IPA, and misspelling variants. First entry
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.