The wreath of the conqueror was an appropriate allusion to those games where the Greek youth delighted to contend, and very probably the first Stephanos was so called by an exulting family whose father had returned with the parsley, or pine-leaf, crown upon his brow, and named the infant in honour of the victory.  For Stephanos was an old Greek name, which had belonged among others to a son of Thucydides, before it came to that Hellenist deacon who first of all achieved the greatest of all the victories, and won the crown. (History of Christian Names, Yonge, 1884)