Sylvester

Where Sylvester comes from

Borrowed from Latin sylvester (“woody, rural”) from silva (“wood”); name of a saint whose feast day falls on December 31.
— Wiktionary's entry for Sylvester
  • Latin
  • 3 syllables
Along the way
  1. 1880
    First SSA year
    Already #153 among boys — 89 babies in the first year on record.
  2. 1889
    Peak, #126
    112 babies named Sylvester — more than any year before or since.
  3. 1943
    Sylvester McCoy born
    Scottish actor
  4. 1946
    Sylvester Stallone born
    American actor and filmmaker
  5. 2020
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #2,467.
In the dictionary
  • A male given name from Latin used in English since the sixteenth century.
Namesakes
  • Sylvester Stallone · American actor and filmmaker, born 1946
  • Sylvester McCoy · Scottish actor, born 1943
  • Sylvester Graham · American Presbyterian minister and dietary reformer, 1794–1851
  • Sylvester Groth · German actor and tenor, born 1958
  • Sylvester Stadler · German general, 1910–1995

Sources: the origin note and dictionary entry are quoted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); the namesakes come from Wikidata (CC0); the milestones are worked out from the SSA record.