Sylvia
Top 1000
About Sylvia
The musical, sylvan Sylvia seems poised to join former friends Frances and Beatrice and Dorothy back in the nursery.
Sylvia has been consistently on the popularity list since records started being kept. She was a Top 100 name from 1932 to 1948, reaching a high of Number 48 in 1932.
Spelled Silvia, she was the mother of the twins Remus and Romulus, who were the mythological founders of Rome, and was a character in Shakespeare's Two Gentlemen of Verona. The Bard also penned the immortal lines "Who is Silvia? what is she, that all our swains admire her?" -- words echoed in the Edward Albee play The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?
Sylvias have also played major roles in Clare Booth Luce's classic play The Women and the Fellini film La Dolce Vita.
Sylvia Plath was the Tragic Heroine of modern poetry.
The French Sylvie is an appealing alternative.
As of October 2026, Sylvia ranked #300 in US births in 2025 SSA, peaked at #50 in 1937, Nameberry popularity #91.
Editor's take: The name Sylvia is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "from the forest".
Popularity & trends
Data table
| Year | US rank | Births | Per million |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | #491 | 636 | 356 |
| 2015 | #484 | 662 | 370.8 |
| 2016 | #503 | 621 | 350.4 |
| 2017 | #484 | 646 | 374.2 |
| 2018 | #492 | 633 | 372.1 |
| 2019 | #511 | 616 | 367 |
| 2020 | #502 | 605 | 374.3 |
| 2021 | #466 | 673 | 410.2 |
| 2022 | #438 | 720 | 439 |
| 2023 | #426 | 724 | 451.2 |
| 2024 | #361 | 863 | 532.7 |
| 2025 | #300 | 1,017 | 632.8 |
World rankings
Similar names
These 20 names were selected by our users looking for other names like Sylvia.
- Felicity
- Theodora
- Lucille
- Rosalind
- Claudia
- Francesca
- Ramona
- Esther
- Gwendolyn
- Helena
- Cecily
- Tabitha
- Ingrid
- Irene
- Miriam
- Colette
- Dorothea
- Fiona
- Viola
- Alma
Sylvia on lists
Famous Sylvias
- (Estelle) Sylvia Pankhurst
English suffragette and socialist
- Sylvia Plath
American poet and novelist
- Sylvia Sidney (born Sophia Kosow)
American actress
- Sylvia Peterson
American singer of The Chiffons
- Sylvia Shaqueria Fowles
American basketball player
- Sylvia Lewis
American actress, dancer, and choreographer
- Sylvia Louise Hitchcock
Miss USA and Miss Universe 1967
- Sylvia of Hollywood (born Symnove Johanne Waaler)
Swedish,American fitness guru to the stars
- Sylvia Celeste Browne
American psychic and author
- Sylvia Llewelyn Davies
mother of the Davies boys, the inspiration for J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan character
- Sylvia Lucia Peters
British television presenter and actress
- (Ai
chia) Sylvia Chang, Taiwanese actress/pop singer
- Sylvia Jeffreys
Australian journalist and TV presenter
- Sylvia Lim (Swee Lian)
Singaporean politician
- Sylvia Moy
American songwriter and producer
- Sylvia Rhyne Hatchell
American college basketball coach
- Sylvia Alice Earle
American marine biologist
- Sylvia Grey Dalton (b. 2012)
daughter of actor Brett Dalton
- Sylvia Zamperini
sister of WWII POW Louis Zamperini
- Sylvia Rivera
transgender woman and LGBT+ activist
- Sylvia Hoeks
Dutch actress
Sylvia in pop culture
- Sylvia
ballet by Leo Delibes
- Sylvia
character in Graham Greene's "The End of the Affair"
- Sylvia
the goat in Edward Albee's "The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?"
- Sylvia Fine
Fran's mother on TV's "The Nanny"
- Sylvia Garland
character in film "The Truman Show"
- Sylvia Parker Jr.
character in fictional podcast "Alice Isn't Dead"
- Sylvia Tietjens
Christopher's unfaithful Roman Catholic wife, a malicious beauty, in novels by Ford Madox Ford
- Sylvia Fowler
character in Clare Booth Luce's "The Women"
- Sylvia Weis
character in film "In Time'
- Queen Sylvia
ruler of Halloway in "The Black Jewels" trilogy
- Sylvia Redbird
character in the 'House Of Night' series by PC Cast
- Sylvia Bennington
character in films "Three Men And A Baby" and "Three Men And A Little Lady"
- Sylvia the Zbornak
character on TV's "Wander Over Yonder"
- Sylvia Miskin McFly ( aka Trixie Trotter)
character in the Back to the Future video game
- "Sylvia's Mother"
song by Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show
- "Sylvia"
song by Stevie Wonder
- Sylvia Green
one of the two heroines of Joan Aiken's "The Wolves of Willoughby Chase"
- Sylvia Tilly
character, Starfleet officer in the TV series, Star Trek: Discovery
- “Sylvia”
Song by Elvis Presley
Variations & nicknames
- SilvinaSpanish
- SilviaSpanish
- SilvanaSpanish
- SilwiaPolish
- SilveriaSpanish
- SylvianneFrench
- SiliviaHawaiian
- SylvetteFrench
- SilvaItalian
- SylvieFrench