The baby name Sylvia combines a surprising number of references and historical ties to create a familiar, under-the-radar name that truly has it all.
Thanks to Kim and Another for suggesting our Baby Name of the Day.
THE MEANING of SYLVIA
Names like Willow and Ocean seem more obvious, but Sylvia is a nature name, too.
It comes from the Latin word silva, meaning forest. Sylvester and Silas share the same roots. (Silas comes from Silvanus.) So does our word sylvan, a poetic word referring to a forest.
SYLVIA in MYTHOLOGY
Legend tells that Rhea Silvia gave birth to Romulus and Remus, who went on to found the city of Rome.
Her story is dark and sorrowful. (This is mythology, after all.) Their father is Mars, the Roman god of war. Rhea Silvia ends tragically, and her boys are raised by a wolf instead.
It’s often depicted in art and re-told in literature.
There’s also Silvanus, a minor god of the woods, also in Roman myth.
SYLVIA in the ANCIENT WORLD
The legendary kings of Alba Longa – part of the story of Rome – included the Silvian Dynasty. They all took the name Silvius, or so the story goes. They pre-date the founding of the city of Rome by Romulus by several centuries.
Depending on the story, the name commemorates the birth of the first Silvius in the woods, or possibly the hiding of Silvius in the same.
Regardless, forms of Silvius were clearly in use in the ancient world.
Fast forward to the sixth century, and the future Saint Silvia was the mother of Pope Saint Gregory the Great.
SHAKESPEARE’S SILVIO
By the Middle Ages, the name Silvio is in use in Italy, and presumably Silvia, too.
In English, William Shakespeare used the name Silvia in The Two Gentlemen of Verona. It’s one of his earliest plays. His Silvia is the daughter of a Duke. It’s a romantic comedy with plenty of mistaken identity and such.
While Shakespeare drew inspiration from Jorge de Montemayor’s pastoral romance Diana, the name might have a different backstory.
In Italian commedia dell’arte, Silvia was one of dozens of stock characters. Silvia was one of the innamorati – characters who existed to fall in love in an over-the-top, dramatic fashion. The approach to theater emerges just a few decades before Shakespeare started writing.
By the late 1500s, then, Silvia was known in English.
SYLVAINE and SYLVIE
While Silvia remains the preferred spelling in Italian and Spanish, the English-speaking world favors Sylvia.
Credit might go to French. Both Sylvaine and Sylvie emerged as feminine forms.
Sylvia bridges Silvia and the French forms.
MID-CENTURY SYLVIAS
The baby name Sylvia was boosted time and time again during the twentieth century.
George Cukor’s 1939 classic movie The Women starred Rosalind Russell as Sylvia. It was based on a Clare Booth Luce play from 1936. The play and movie were a sort of forerunner to Sex and the City. (When it was updated in 2008, Annette Bening played a character called Sylvie.)
Sylvia Plath lends the name a literary edge. The Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and author is best remembered for her poems, as well as the semi-autobiographical The Bell Jar, and for her tragic death in 1963.
Silvia Sommerlath married King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden in 1976. She’s been known as Queen Silvia ever since. The pair met at the 1972 Olympics in Munich. The queen speaks six languages, and is known for her charitable work on behalf of children.
BY the NUMBERS
Through all of this, the baby name Sylvia has never left the US Top 1000.
It peaked in the 1910s, and rose again into the 1930s, becoming even more popular. In fact, it ranked in the US Top 100 as recently as 1952.
No surprise, then, that Sylvia fell out of favor. By the year 2000, it stood at a chilly #497. It must’ve felt like a cousin to an earlier generation of names: Patricia, Shirley, Nancy, Judith, and Carol, maybe?
But like all of those former favorites, the baby name Sylvia is not easily forgotten.
As parents went wild for Sophia and other girls’ names ending with IA, Sylvia started to show signs of an early revival.
By 2023, the baby name Sylvia ranked #426. That’s not nearly as popular as the name has been in the past, but it’s a bit of a recovery.
Also noteworthy: the baby name Sylvie ranks #425. Combined, the sound is more popular than it first appears.
TRADITIONAL and TIMELESS
The baby name Sylvia, along with Silvia, remains in heavy rotation across the western world. But it’s not a style star at the moment.
Instead, Sylvia has emerged as a traditional, timeless choice. It’s less common than Sophia or Olivia, but shares sounds with both of those chart-topping favorites.
It’s a strong choice for a daughter, in use across millennia, quietly tied to the natural world, literature, and pop culture, too.
My daughter (Dec 2011) is a Silvia. I picked it especially because it’s like the Stellas, Olivias and Sophias, but not nearly as common. We get a lot of ‘Sylvia’ on her preschool artwork, but I’m sure Sophia/Sofia gets that too. I also love that it’s pronounced the same almost everywhere, important to us since we’re bilingual at home. (Dutch as well as English.).
My daughter (turns 5 in 2015) is named Sylvia Grace. We call her many variations, including Syl and Sylly. But never Sylvie. She is a very vivacious and outgoing child and, actually quite silly, so the NN fits.
We love this Name. Our top choice is Sylvia Bernadette
I much rather prefer Sylvia than Sylvie. Sylvie is already shortened, you don’t need to shorten it further. And Silver is beautiful …
hi, my name is Sylvie, i’m 14, not shortened. it can be annoying sometimes but it fits in well, I am english but my last name is french. it is a good name to have, you don’t really grow out of it, but it is harder to experiment with, their aren’t really any good nicknames for it.
and just to say, having Sylvie shortened to Silver all the time is so annoying…
How about ‘SILVER’ as NN. Thats a beautiful shimmery NN.