Silas
Silas reached its high-water mark in 2025 at number 71, and has been recorded 75,649 times in all. In 2025 it ranked 71st. About 67,000 Silases are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 8.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Silas boys named Silas
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 75,649
- Estimated living today
- 67,000
- Median age today
- 8
- Peak year
- 2025
- Best rank
- 71st
- Rank in 2025
- 71st
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 184 / 75,465
How old the living Silases are
born that year still alive today
Of the 75,649 babies given the name since 1880, about 67,000 are alive — 89 in every hundred. Roughly 56,000 of them are children and 1,600 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2017 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
Origin Aramaic
From Latin Sīlās, from Ancient Greek Σίλας, from Aramaic שְׁאִילָא, cognate of Hebrew שָׁאוּל.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Silass
- Silas Weir Mitchell (born 1970)American actor
- Silas Katompa Mvumpa (born 1998)DR Congolese footballer
- Silas Carson (born 1965)English actor
- Silas Kiplagat (born 1989)Kenyan distance runner
- Silas Weir Mitchell (1829–1914)American physician
- Silas Deane (1737–1789)American politician
- Silas Wright (1795–1847)American politician
- Silas Silvius Njiru (1928–2020)Kenyan catholic bishop
People named Silas with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Silas is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Silas is most concentrated in Alaska (3.0×), Oregon (2.2×), Vermont (2.1×), Washington (1.9×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2025
The most popular boys’ names the year Silas peaked:
Silas elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Denmark boys | Silas | 2,758 | 21st |
| Switzerland boys | Silas | 1,870 | 53rd |
| France boys | Silas | 1,660 | 487th |
| England and Wales boys | Silas | 1,026 | 468th |
| Norway boys | Silas | 687 | 92nd |
| Belgium boys | Silas | 435 | 380th |
| Scotland boys | Silas | 19 | 592nd |
| Ireland boys | Silas | 12 | 699th |
| Northern Ireland boys | Silas | 8 | 365th |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Silas: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German boys | Switzerland | Silas | 1,788 | 0.144% | 38th |
| French boys | Switzerland | Silas | 72 | 0.017% | 273rd |
| Italian boys | Switzerland | Silas | 4 | 0.006% | 112th |
| Romansh boys | Switzerland | Silas | 6 | 0.161% | 3rd |
Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.
By canton, Silas is most concentrated in Basel-Landschaft, where 0.22% of children were given it – 119 of them.
Silas: rank by region
In 2025, Silas was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Silas | 290 | 20 |
In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Silas appears in the lists for Province of West Flanders (178th).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Silas by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin boys | 2017–2023 | 77 | 200th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Silas among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland boys | Silas | 58 | 83 |
A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Related names
Silas against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.