Spanish feminine form of Felipe (Philip), from Greek philippos meaning 'lover of horses.'
Felipa is the Spanish and Portuguese feminine form of Philip, tracing its lineage back to the ancient Greek name Philippos — a compound of "philos" (loving, fond of) and "hippos" (horse), yielding the vivid and literal meaning "lover of horses." The name entered Christian Europe through the apostle Philip, one of the twelve disciples, ensuring its spread wherever Catholic and Orthodox missionaries carried the faith. Its feminine forms — Filippa in Italian, Philippine in French, Felipa in Iberian languages — followed wherever the masculine name was honored.
Felipa has particular historical resonance in the Americas through Felipa Pañasco (also known as Felipa de la Cruz), a seventeenth-century Mexican indigenous woman beatified in the Catholic Church, and through the countless colonial-era women named Felipa in baptismal records from New Spain to the Philippines. The Philippines themselves bear the name of King Philip II of Spain — making Filipino a derivative of the same Philippos root — creating an unusual linguistic loop where Felipa and Filipino share an ancestor. In medieval Iberia, Felipa appeared among noble families as the feminine counterpart to a name associated with Macedonian kings and Christian apostles alike.
Today Felipa is uncommon outside Latin America and Spain, where it has a pleasingly old-fashioned character — grandmother-era without feeling dusty, classical without being cold. Its three syllables fall musically, with the stress on the second, and it shortens naturally to the affectionate Feli. For those drawn to names with deep classical roots that have traveled across languages and centuries, Felipa offers both history and sound.