Meaning and background
The story behind Sebastian
Sebastian has roots in the Latin Sebastianus, literally indicating a person from Sebaste, a city in ancient Asia Minor. The place-name in turn relates to Greek sebastos, “venerable”. The history is layered: “venerable” belongs to the underlying place-name, not to a claim about the dog itself. Sebastian also has a longstanding Christian historical association with Saint Sebastian and a rhythm of several distinct syllables.
- Origin
- Latin Sebastianus, meaning a person from Sebaste, a city-name ultimately related to Greek sebastos (“venerable”). Source
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About Sebastian
Recorded as a dog’s name
Sebastian appears in 41 dog licence records in the 2026 New York City dataset.
How to read this count
These records cover New York City and may count the same dog in more than one licence period. They are not a national popularity ranking.
Pronunciation and rhythm
/səbæstʃən/
US English sound sequence, converted from the CMU dictionary. Stress marks are shown separately.
Stress on the second syllable in the recorded US readings.
View dictionary notation
/səbæstʃən/ · primary stress on syllable 2S AH0 B AE1 S CH AH0 N
These are US dictionary readings. Personal, regional and other language pronunciations may differ.
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Sources and research notes (2)
Gender association: NYC licence-period records. Any dog can use this name.
- New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene NYC Dog Licensing Dataset — extract_year 2026 — Dog licence periods, not unique dogs; NYC only. No owner-level fields retrieved.
- Carnegie Mellon University / CMU Sphinx maintainers CMU US English Pronouncing Dictionary — US English dictionary readings; not owner-specific or exhaustive multilingual pronunciation
References support the individual facts shown. A source link does not mean the entire profile has been verified.