Sylvia — #361 US girls' name

What the Data Says About Sylvia

The Social Security Administration has registered 244,041 babies named Sylvia between 1880 and 2024, spanning 145 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a girl's name, Sylvia currently holds the #361 rank among girls for 2024. The name reached its historical peak in 1937, when 4,371 babies received it in a single year.

Decade-level aggregation shows that Sylvia performed strongest in the 1950s, accumulating 39,540 births during that ten-year window. Across the 15 decades of recorded activity, Sylvia shows a clear decline from its mid-century high. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in Texas, which accounts for 27,991 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by New York and California. In total, SSA state-level files list Sylvia in 51 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for Sylvia in our reference dataset. These figures derive from SSA's annual national and state-level name files, which include any name appearing at least five times in a given year or state-year; names below that threshold are suppressed for privacy and therefore excluded from the totals shown here. The 244,041 total represents a lower bound — actual usage may be higher in years or states where the count fell below the disclosure floor. This page is provided for informational and research purposes only and does not constitute personal, legal, or naming advice.