The surname Phillips derives from the first name Philip. The ‘s’ is short for ‘son’, so strictly speaking Phillips means ‘son of Philip’.

The first name Philip comes from the Ancient Greek and means ‘lover of horses’. (The prefix ‘phil-’ means ‘lover of’, as in philosophy (lover of wisdom) and philanthropy (lover of one’s fellow men)). The first name Philip achieved wide popularity throughout Christendom owing to the apostle Philip. However, this first name rapidly went out of fashion in England during the reign of Elizabeth I, when our national enemy was Spain. In those days the King of Spain was Philip II, and with England under the threat of the Armada the name Philip became about as popular in England as Adolf is at present. The first name Philip remained under a cloud for several centuries after this, and did not really revive in popu­larity until the start of the reign of the second Queen Elizabeth, the popularity of the Queen’s husband causing the name to come into fashion again. Prince Philip, being descended from the Greek royal family, was named after European royalty, where the name has always been popular.

The surname Philip (or Phillips), on the other hand, did not suffer such dramatic changes in fortune. Phillips, like any name derived from a widespread first name, has a whole host of related names (compare the surnames for Robert, David and John). The surname Phelps (originally as Philps) derives from an abbreviated form of Philip, as does the more obvious but rarer Philson. Phipps is the same. Philpot (and thus Filpot) derives from the once popular diminutive, Philip-ot, a French diminutive form. (In this way Mary gives us the name Marriot, and nowadays in France Charlie Chaplin (‘Charlie’) is still commonly known as ‘Charlot’).

Other derivative surnames from the first name Philip include Fill, Filkin, and Philcox. In some cases even the original first syllable has been dropped, thus we get (by way of Philpot) the surnames Pott, Potkin, and Pottell-though in some cases these surnames have alternative entirely separate derivations.

The first name Philip first arrived in England during the twelfth century, coming by way of France in the French form Philippe. From this time on it appears regularly in the records as a first name. The earliest reference to the surname comes in the 1275 Hundred Rolls for Norfolk, where one Henry Philip is listed.

Tuberculosis was one of the scourges of the nineteenth century. The Scottish physician Sir Robert William Phillip played a major role in its prevention and cure, and founded Europe’s first TB dispensary at Edinburgh in 1887. By the time of his death in 1939, the dread disease had been brought under control.

The Phillips Curve, named after A.W. Phillips, is a graphic representation of the economic relationship between the rate of unemployment and the rate of change of wages. It indi­cates that wages tend to rise faster when unemployment is low.

The Phillips Collection is a small but outstanding collection of late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century American and European paintings. The museum, in Washington DC, was founded in 1918 by Duncan Phillips.

In 1891 Anton Frederik Philips founded Philips Electric in Holland, now one of the world’s largest firms for the manu­facture of electrical appliances and lighting equipment.

In 1687 the English colonial administrator Sir William Phipps (1651—95) headed an expedition to the Caribbean in search of sunken treasure and came back with £300,000 of Spanish gold. With his newfound wealth he bought himself a knighthood, and eventually rose to become Royal Governor of Massachusetts. He was later recalled to England, however, to face charges of misgovernment, but died before his trial.

The United Kingdom has no towns or major geographic features which are related to this name but Phillips’s need not feel downhearted. An entire country is their namesake-the Philippines. Canada has a Philipsburg, South Africa a Philips- town and a Philippolis, Belgium a Philipville, Holland a Phillippine and West Germany a Philippsburg. Some 14 United States towns and cities are Phillips-related. Geographic features with the name are common and include Australia’s famed Phillips range.

With about 131,000 namesakes Phillips is the 38th most popular surname in England and Wales. (The name is not common enough throughout Scotland to be counted separ­ately.) Phillips is notably popular in and around Cardiff where an estimated one in about 150 families bears the name. In descending numerical order Bristol, Birmingham and Coventry are other Phillips strongholds. Around the world Phillips’s are most common in Wellington (one in 652 families), Can­berra (one in 657) and Melbourne (one in 707). The United States has more Phillips’s than the entire population of Coventry-an estimated total of just under 380,000 makes this their 40th most popular surname.