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Sylwia

Girls' name

Form of Silvia

Sylwia has been given to 119 babies in the U.S. since 1986. 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 1996, with 15 recorded.

Babies named Sylwia, 2005

1 in 769,000

Sylwia over time, 1880–2025

Girls
05101518801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Sylwia: meaning, origin, and history

Form of Silvia

Latin

What Sylwia means

Sylwia is a form of Silvia.

Documented naming usage and pronunciation

Sylwia is used in Polish.

Another recorded pronunciation is /ˈsɨl.vja/ for Sylwia.

Meaning behind the documented name family

The name developed through Sylwia → Silvia. The family’s meaning is “forest”, recorded in English with the source elements silva.

Origin, language, and formation

Sylwia is used in Polish. Its origins include Latin.

Sylwia comes through Latin Silvia.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Silvia.

Pronunciation and spelling

In Polish, Sylwia is pronounced /ˈsɘl.vja/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 119 girls were recorded with the name Sylwia between 1986 and 2005. Its highest annual count was 15 in 1996; its best national rank was #6,110 in 1986.

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 Sylwia?

Sylwia had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2005, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2005
1 in 769,000
5 of 3,844,258 births
Among girls only
1 in 369,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2005
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
532,928 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Sylwia sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Olivia (13,544)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 2005 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 532,928 children born in 2005 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Sylwia. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Sylwias were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Sylwia was born before 1995 — so the typical Sylwia is around 30 today.

Median birth year
1995
About 30 years old
Biggest decade
1990s
76.5% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
100.0%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
119
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1990s — 76.5% of all recorded uses (91).

Is Sylwia 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 1996 (15)
Years since peak
29
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Shifting
21.9% average annual change
Best rank ever
#6,110
1986

Spellings of Sylwia

Sylwia is not the most common spelling — Sylvia is, with 87.5% against Sylwia's 0.04%.

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 Sylwia is used

Across 1910–2025, Sylwia was most concentrated in Illinois — about 1 in 100,000 girls, against 1 in 426,175 across all states with data. It was least common in New York (1 in —).

01 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Illinois1 in 100,000
  2. 2New York1 in —

Shading is the share of that state's recorded girls 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. Sylwia has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Sylwia around the world

Where Sylwia 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
    2007–2019
    #5,591
    in 2019
  • Ireland
    2013–2014
    #876
    in 2014
  • Norway
    1880–1996
    #509
    in 1996

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics, Central Statistics Office and Statistics Norway. ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. CSO, SSB data under CC BY 4.0.

Sylwia by the numbers

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

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#6,110
1986
Peak year
1996
15 that year
First recorded
1986
Last recorded
2005
All-time count
119
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Sylwia

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

SylvanSylverSylveeSylahSylasSylinaSylviSylvanasSyleenaSylaSylerOliwiaSylenaSylvianaSylivaSylvanaSylarSylvaSylvinaSylindaSyliviaSylphrenaSylvannaSylia

Sibling names for Sylwia

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 Sylwia

Top names of 1996, Sylwia's peak yearThe 1990s in fullOther names that peaked in 1986Girls' names starting with S