Sylvestre
surname · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Sylvestre is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. Recorded meaning: From Latin Silvester, meaning ‘of the woods; woodland’.
- DMDominica1 in 3.4K(measured from records)
- KNSt. Kitts & Nevis1 in 27K
- CHSwitzerland1 in 179K
carrying the name, as counted by each country's national register. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- Sources
- 10 (measured from records)
- 1 in 3.4K (inferred from the name graph)
1,658 people, 2010
Reference-verified
Dominica
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
From Latin Silvester, meaning ‘of the woods; woodland’.
Sources 1
- Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
Attested across 12 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Sylvestre counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | 1,658 | 1 in 201K | 1.7K | Sylvestre | 10 |
| BR Brazil | 537 | 1 in 394K | 537 | — | — |
| AR Argentina | 59 | 1 in 771K | 59 | — | — |
| CH Switzerland | 47 | 1 in 179K | 47 | — | — |
| BE Belgium | 41 | 1 in 286K | 41 | — | — |
| DM Dominica | 22 | 1 in 3.4K | 22 | — | — |
| KN St. Kitts & Nevis | 2 | 1 in 27K | 2 | — | — |
1,658 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register); Dominica — Revised List of Electors May 2025; St Kitts & Nevis — Register of Electors 2026. Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Sylvestre is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In French, sylvan
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In French, Du latin Silvester, dérivé de silva « forêt, bois ».
as a nameDictionnaire des noms de famille du Canada français. Anthroponymie et généalogie. 2e édition
In French, Du latin Silvester « forestier, des bois »; saint Silvestre, pape.
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
In French, Du latin *silvestris* « forestier »; saint Sylvestre.
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
In French, From Latin silvestris, 'of the woods'
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Joseph-Noël Sylvestreb. 1847FRFrench painter (1847-1926)
- Simone Sylvestreb. 1923FRFrench actress (1923–2020)
- Dominique Michelb. 1932CAnot in their usual nameCanadian comedian, actress, singer and artist
- Cleo Sylvestreb. 1945GBBritish actress (1945–2024)
- Patrick Sylvestreb. 1968CHSwiss footballer
- Slaïb. 1973FRnot in their usual nameFrench singer
- Olivier Sylvestreb. 1982CAplaywright working in Quebec
- Ludovic Sylvestreb. 1984FRFrench footballer (born 1984)
- Brian Sylvestreb. 1992USAmerican soccer player
- Eddy Sylvestreb. 1999FRAlgerian and French footballer
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 53 sources across 30 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 368 | #25,436 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 42 | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 40 | #74,979 |
| BR Brazil | Brasil.IO genero-nomes (IBGE Censo 2010 mirror, CC-BY-SA) | — | 39 | #34,019 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 5 | #25,436 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2023 | 5 | — |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — births 1922–2015 (Kaggle mirror) | 2013 | 3 | — |
Reference works 5
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Sylvestre mean, and where does it come from?
- From Latin Silvester, meaning ‘of the woods; woodland’. Recorded by Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education).
- What are other forms of the name Sylvestre?
- In the etymology graph, Sly, Silvestro and Vester are forms of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Sylvestre have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 1.7 thousand people named Sylvestre, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled sylvestre.
- Where is Sylvestre most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Sylvestre is densest in Dominica — about 1 in 3.4 thousand people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Sylvestre?
- In the United States, the national register counted 1,658 people named Sylvestre in 2010, about 1 in 201 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Sylvestre?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/sylvestreThe same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use; a free API key gives 1,000 requests a day, and bulk access is licensed separately.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Sylvestre”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.