# Phinehas (first name)

Source: https://namelineage.com/first-name/phinehas/  
Publisher: Name Lineage. US counts from the Social Security Administration; England and Wales counts from the Office for National Statistics; meaning and etymology from Wiktionary. Data updated 2026-11-11.

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Usually given to | boys |
| Origin | Greek |
| Meaning | “the nubian”, “oracle” |
| Pronunciation | not recorded |
| Nicknames | none recorded |
| Variant spellings | none recorded |
| US babies named this | 585 since 1880 |
| Boys / girls in the US | 585 / 0 (0% girls) |
| Babies in England and Wales | 17, 1996 to 2025 |

## Etymology

Uncertain. From Biblical Hebrew פִּינְחָס (Pīnəḥās); further derivation is uncertain. פִּינְחָס (Pīnəḥās) has been suggested to derive from Egyptian pꜣ-nḥsj (literally “the Nubian”), from pꜣ + nḥsj. Alternatively, within Judaism the name has been suggested to be a compound of the elements פה (mouth) and נחש (intuitive knowledge), and so meaning "oracle", but this has been suggested to be an example of folk etymology made after the fact.

## Popularity

The last 15 years of each series. A year is missing when too few babies were given the name for the agency to publish it: five in the US, three in England and Wales.

### United States, boys

| Year | Babies | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 26 | 3,963 |
| 2012 | 15 | 5,914 |
| 2013 | 24 | 4,149 |
| 2014 | 19 | 5,011 |
| 2015 | 29 | 3,758 |
| 2016 | 28 | 3,866 |
| 2017 | 31 | 3,567 |
| 2018 | 27 | 3,967 |
| 2019 | 33 | 3,477 |
| 2020 | 34 | 3,326 |
| 2021 | 38 | 3,165 |
| 2022 | 39 | 3,141 |
| 2023 | 32 | 3,611 |
| 2024 | 40 | 3,085 |
| 2025 | 51 | 2,594 |

### England and Wales, boys

| Year | Babies | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 5 | 3,416 |
| 2017 | 3 | 4,812 |
| 2023 | 5 | 3,523 |
| 2025 | 4 | 4,275 |

## In other languages

- Bulgarian: Финей
- Esperanto: Pineĥaso

## How to read these numbers

A count is babies registered with that name in that year, not people alive now, so a name common a century ago can have a large total and few recent births.