It’s an ancient choice that could sound just right alongside some of 2008′s most popular monikers.

Thanks to Another for suggesting today’s Name of the Day: Sybil.

Once upon a time, Sybil was not a personal name, but a title.  The sibyls of the ancient world were female prophets, usually in residence at an oracle.  While their personal identities are largely unknown, their cryptic pronouncements influenced the course of history.

Chances are that their role dates from the earliest days of Greek civilization.  Sibyls were consulted in the Roman Empire and bridged the transition to Christianity.  The Sibyl at Cumae was said to have predicted the birth of Jesus; Virgil quotes her in his Bucolics. 

As a given name, Sibyl is first used around the year 1000, usually in the Latinized form Sybilla.  An aristocratic Sybilla was King Henry I of England’s mistress; their daughter Sybilla married Alexander I, King of Scots.  From 1186 to 1190, another Sybilla reigned as Queen of Jerusalem.  One of her descendants, also called Sybilla, would marry King Leo I of Armenia in 1210.

The names Sybilla, Sibyl and Sybil were in use throughout the Middle Ages, into the Renaissance as the figures were staples of art and popular culture alike.  You’ll find five sibyls depicted in Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel.  So while her name is far from explicitly Christian, it was one of the choices that fell out of favor during the Protestant Reformation.

Sibyl teetered on the edge of extinction until those intrepid Victorians rediscovered her.  She got a boost when Benjamin Disraeli called his 1845 novel Sybil, or The Two Nations.  (Disraeli’s character, Sybil Gerard, would have a second literary life in 1990, when William Gibson and Bruce Sterling borrowed her for their novel The Difference Engine, an alternate history where Charles Babbage built his analytical proto-computer during the industrial age.)

The name remained in steady use into the 20th century.  It’s difficult to understand her fall from grace.  While Sibyl last ranked in the US Top 1000 in 1929, Sybil remained reasonably common, ranking in the Top 500 through the 1940s.  But she dropped in popularity as the similar Carol and Cheryl gained steam.  Sybil last appeared in the US Top 1000 in 1966. 

Perhaps she’s remained obscure because Sybil was the pseudonym chosen for Shirley Mason, the woman whose struggles with multiple personality disorder would become a best-selling 1973 book and popular 1976 made-for-TV movie starring Sally Field.

Even Cybill Shepherd’s star turn in the 1980s smash hit Moonlighting couldn’t revive the name – though her character would help propel Madeline to the very heights of popularity.

Today’s children will probably associate the name with Sybil Trewlaney, professor of divination at Hogwarts in the Harry Potter series.  She’s not exactly a heroic character, though she’s not a bad one – and indeed, one of her rare prophecies does prove critical in the young wizard’s adventures.

Names that end in -ol, -yl, -elle, -le, -iel and -ielle have remained quite current in recent years.  After Carol and Cheryl came Michelle, Nicole, Rachel, April, Crystal and Danielle.  Today, add in Isabel, Gabrielle and Ariel and we have no trouble seeing Sybil fitting right in.

But she remains elusive – seldom-used and a little bit mysterious.  Perhaps that’s as it should be for such an ancient name.