Philo

Where Philo comes from

Philo hasn't made it into the dictionaries we draw on, and nobody well known enough for an encyclopedia has carried it yet — so for now its story is the one the SSA record tells. Names that spell a familiar sound a new way often live here for a while before anyone writes them down.

  • Vowel-ended
Along the way
  1. 1880
    First SSA year
    Already #909 among boys — 5 babies in the first year on record.
  2. 1881
    Peak, #866
    5 babies named Philo — more than any year before or since.
  3. 1882
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births.
  4. 1906
    Philo Farnsworth born
    American inventor
  5. 1959
    Philo Ikonya born
    Kenyan writer and journalist, human rights activist
In the dictionary

No dictionary entry for this spelling — which is its own kind of rare.

Namesakes
  • Philo Farnsworth · American inventor, 1906–1971
  • Philo Ikonya · Kenyan writer and journalist, human rights activist, born 1959
  • Philo McCullough · American film actor, 1893–1981
  • Philo Remington · American businessman, 1816–1889
  • Philo Hall · American politician, 1865–1938

Sources: the origin note and dictionary entry are quoted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); the namesakes come from Wikidata (CC0); the milestones are worked out from the SSA record.