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Silvester

Boys' name

Woody, rural, through Sylvester

Silvester has been given to 1,306 babies in the U.S. since 1884. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 1960, with 32 recorded.

Babies named Silvester, 2023

1 in 552,000

Silvester over time, 1880–2025

Boys
01020304018801900192019401960198020002020

Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Silvester: meaning, origin, and history

Woody, rural, through Sylvester

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Silvester means

Silvester belongs to the name family reached through Silvester → Sylvester. Its meaning is “woody, rural”.

Origin, language, and formation

Silvester is used in English, Estonian and German.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Sylvester.

Pronunciation and spelling

In German, Silvester is pronounced /zɪlˈvɛstɐ/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 1,306 boys were recorded with the name Silvester between 1884 and 2023. Its highest annual count was 32 in 1960; its best national rank was #836 in 1884.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning, origin, and language notes draw on the references below.

American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling. Counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted.

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

How common is Silvester?

Silvester had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2023, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2023
1 in 552,000
6 of 3,314,783 births
Among boys only
1 in 285,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2023
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
382,940 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Silvester sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Liam (20,818)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 2023 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 382,940 children born in 2023 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Silvester. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Silvesters were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Silvester was born before 1952 — so the typical Silvester is around 73 today.

Median birth year
1952
About 73 years old
Biggest decade
1920s
16.7% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
6.0%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
687
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1920s — 16.7% of all recorded uses (218).

Is Silvester rising or falling?

Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.

Rank vs 1 year ago
—
Not ranked then
Rank vs 5 years ago
New entry
Not ranked then
Rank vs 10 years ago
—
Not ranked then
Births vs 10 years ago
—
Not published both years
Share of its own peak
0%
Peak was 1960 (32)
Years since peak
65
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
32.4% average annual change
Best rank ever
#836
1884

Spellings of Silvester

Silvester is not the most common spelling — Sylvester is, with 92.0% against Silvester's 2.8%.

Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.

Where Silvester is used

Across 1910–2025, Silvester was most concentrated in Arkansas — about 1 in 100,000 boys, against 1 in 334,138 across all states with data. It was least common in Mississippi (1 in —).

01 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Arkansas1 in 100,000
  2. 2Texas1 in 100,000
  3. 3California1 in —
  4. 4Mississippi1 in —

Shading is the share of that state's recorded boys given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings. Silvester has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Silvester around the world

Where Silvester ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.

  • England & Wales
    2007–2024
    #5,120
    in 2024
  • South Australia
    1957–1957
    #427
    in 1957

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Silvester by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a boy's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#836
1884
Peak year
1960
32 that year
First recorded
1884
Last recorded
2023
All-time count
1,306
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Silvester

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

SilvestreSilverioSilvanoAllisterSilvianoAleisterAlisterSilvioSilverCoulterJupiterRochesterKharterForresterLevesterWinterCutterPieterKolterWebsterPhilopaterMisterSilvinoSlater

Sibling names for Silvester

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Silvester

Top names of 1960, Silvester's peak yearThe 1960s in fullOther names that peaked in 1884Boys' names starting with S