Sylva vs Sylvan

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Sylva Sylvan

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Of the 138 years in which either name was published, Sylvan for 118 years and Sylva for 20 years. The lead changed hands 10 times.

• 1886 Sylvan ahead
• 1888–1899 Sylva ahead
• 1900 Sylvan ahead
• 1901–1905 Sylva ahead
• 1906 Sylvan ahead
• 1907 Sylva ahead
• 1908 Sylvan ahead
• 1909–1910 Sylva ahead
• 1911–1966 Sylvan ahead
• 1967 Sylva ahead
• 1968–2025 Sylvan ahead

Side by side

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Which name is older

Half of the Sylvas alive today are over 76; half the Sylvans are over 18. That is 58 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

• Sylva vs Sylvia
• Sylva vs Sylvester
• Sylva vs Sylas
• Sylva vs Sylvie
• Sylva vs Sylus
• Sylvan vs Sylvia
• Sylvan vs Sylvester
• Sylvan vs Sylas