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“Variant of Silvia — Of the forest; spirit of the wood” — Latin origin
Girl's name · #300 in the US (2025) · Timeless
Few names move less than Sylvia — on the books since 1880, #300 in 2025, and dependable in between. Roughly 245,000 girls share it. In all that time it has never once missed a year of the national records. Its center of gravity has moved: strongest in the South in the 1940s and 1950s, strongest in the Midwest today. Together with its spelling variant Silvia (#1240), Sylvia would rank around #258 with about 1,200 births last year — the newborns split about 85/15 between Sylvia and Silvia.
Around the world: about 1 in 920 girls in New Zealand (2025) · about 1 in 2,700 girls in England & Wales (2025) · about 1 in 2,800 girls in Canada (2024).
Appears in 2020-2025 birth records of 43 states. See the full state-by-state map on this page.
Among 1,652 notable people named Sylvia:
Medical professionals appear 1.82× more often than among typical names — e.g. Sylvia Fedoruk, Canadian medical physicist, curler and politician (1927–2012).
Similar names: Sylvie · Frances · Shiloh · Gloria · Rosemary · Loretta
Browse more girl names — popularity, trends and eras for 5,700+ American names, free.