Silvan
Silvan was given to 10 boys in 2025, #8,153 among boys’ names; 102 Americans have been recorded with it since 1926 (Social Security Administration, published May 2026).
Girls and boys together; gaps are years SSA did not record (fewer than 5 births).
Births of Silvan by year: SSA national baby-name file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
What does Silvan mean?
Wiktionary, English section
Silvan is “a male given name.”
Meaning: Wiktionary, English section, as of Sep 25, 2026 (CC BY‑SA 4.0).
How popular is Silvan?
#8,153 among boys’ names, 2025
Silvan rose from #11,874 in 2015 to #8,153 in 2025 among boys’ names; its share of boys born rose from 3.1 to 5.9 per million.
12 babies in 2024, the peak
Silvan peaked in 2024, when 12 boys were given it, #7,202 among boys’ names. The 10 births of 2025 are 83% of that peak.
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million boys |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 10 | #8,153 | 5.9 |
| 2024 | 12 | #7,202 | 7.0 |
| 2023 | 9 | #8,816 | 5.3 |
| 2021 | 6 | #11,921 | 3.4 |
| 2020 | 10 | #7,961 | 5.8 |
| 2018 | 7 | #10,576 | 3.9 |
| 2017 | 5 | #13,952 | 2.7 |
| 2016 | 8 | #9,539 | 4.2 |
| 2015 | 6 | #11,874 | 3.1 |
| 2014 | 5 | #13,762 | 2.6 |
Every recorded year (14)
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million boys |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 6 | #12,040 | 3.2 |
| 1994 | 5 | #10,035 | 2.6 |
| 1956 | 8 | #3,172 | 3.8 |
| 1926 | 5 | #4,743 | 4.5 |
Ranks and shares: boys’ names in each year’s SSA file; share of all boys SSA recorded that year.
Is Silvan a boy’s or a girl’s name?
Silvan has been recorded only for boys: SSA lists no girls with the name in 14 years of records (it lists a name only in years with 5 or more babies of a sex).
Girls and boys named Silvan: the SSA national file counts each sex separately.
How many people are named Silvan, and how old are they?
An estimated 94 Americans named Silvan and born in the U.S. are alive in 2026, too few to state an age range. An estimate from SSA’s births and life tables, not a count.
The 2020 Census counted 238 people named Silvan (24 women and girls, 214 men and boys). SSA’s births carried forward to Census day, April 1, 2020, predict 51 born in the U.S. The Census count is 4.7 times that prediction. Possible reasons: the Census records the name people give, which for many is the short form Silvan rather than the name on their birth record, and it counts people born abroad, whom SSA’s files leave out.
Living estimate: SSA births carried forward with the survival rates in SSA’s cohort life tables (2024 Trustees Report) for each birth year and sex. How the estimate is made. Count: Census Bureau, first names in the 2020 Census (released April 14, 2026; names reported 100 or more times, with the Bureau’s disclosure-avoidance adjustment).
How common is the spelling Silvan?
Silvan is a less common spelling of Sylvan: SSA has recorded 102 Silvan and 3,813 Sylvan since 1880.
Of these 4 names spelled alike, given to 4,058 babies since 1880, Silvan is the second most given (2.5% of them). In 2025 it was given to 10 of their 126 babies (7.9%), again the second most given.
Spelled alike: names in the SSA national file with the same pattern of letters and sounds and at most two letters apart, and Wiktionary’s listed forms; births since 1880 and in 2025, and each name’s peak year, from the SSA national file, published May 8, 2026. Some are separate names, not spellings of one.
Names that rose and fell in the same decades as Silvan
Names whose births rose and fell across the same decades, measured on each decade’s share of births.
Similar histories: each decade’s share of births, from the SSA national file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
More about Silvan and names like it
- Compare Silvan and SylvanBirths, ranks, peak and the living estimate side by side.
- The most given names of the 2020sSilvan peaked in 2024.
- The top names of 2024The year the most babies were named Silvan.
- Names starting with SMost given first.