Sylvie
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Sylvie peut être tantôt le nom scientifique des fauvettes ou une autre appellation de l’anémone des bois dont le rapport avec le prénom tient à l’étymologie du mot sylva , forêt en latin
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/silvi/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Sylvie is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in France than in any other country, where it is the 24th most common given name.
- FRFrance≈1 in 251(inferred from the name graph)
- CMCameroon≈1 in 598
- BEBelgium≈1 in 756
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- France (inferred from the name graph)
- 3 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 399 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 251 (inferred from the name graph)
≈270,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
France, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Sylvie peut être tantôt le nom scientifique des fauvettes ou une autre appellation de l’anémone des bois dont le rapport avec le prénom tient à l’étymologie du mot sylva , forêt en latin.
Sources 1
- 2500 noms propres devenus communs : dictionnaire étymologique (éponymes, antonomases et hypallages)
Attested across 20 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Sylvie 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FR France | #24 | ≈270,000 est. | ≈1 in 251 | 365K | Sylvie | 399 |
| CM Cameroon | #32 | ≈46,000 est. | ≈1 in 598 | — | Sylvie | 40 |
| CD Congo - Kinshasa | #169 | ≈24,000 est. | ≈1 in 4.2K | — | Sylvie | 24 |
| CA Canada | #302 | ≈22,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.7K | 16 | Sylvie | 231 |
| MG Madagascar | #95 | ≈21,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.3K | — | Sylvie | 21 |
| BE Belgium | #90 | ≈16,000 est. | ≈1 in 756 | 13 | Sylvie | 145 |
| US United States | — | 6,588 | 1 in 50K | 6.6K | Sylvie | 313 |
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: INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register). 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)
Sylvie 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, Du latin silva « forêt »; forme féminine de Sylvain.
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
In French, Du latin *Silvia*, « de la forêt »; sainte Sylvie.
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
In French, Origine latine, signifie « forêt ».
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
In French, From Latin Silvia, 'of the forest'
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
French form of SILVIA , now also used in the English-speaking world.
as a word
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)
- Sylvie Vartanb. 1944BGFrench singer, chansonnier, and actress (born 1944)
- Barbara Cassinb. 1947FRnot in their usual nameFrench philologist and philosopher (born 1947)
- Sylvie Kinigib. 1952BIBurundian politician
- Sylvie Germainb. 1954FRFrench writer (born 1954)
- Joanne Harrisb. 1964GBnot in their usual nameBritish and French author
- Sylvie Goulardb. 1964FRFrench politician
- Sylvie Guillemb. 1965FRFrench dancer and choreographer
- Florence Nibart-Devouardb. 1968FRnot in their usual nameFrench open knowledge advocate, Chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, co-founder of Wikimedia France (born 1968)
- Sylvie Testudb. 1971FRFrench actress
- Sylvie Meisb. 1978NLDutch television personality and model
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).
How to address them(machine-generated)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 77 sources across 44 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024) | 2024 | 365K | #3,319 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 6.6K | #3,249 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 1.1K | — |
| CA Canada | Statistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01) | 2024 | 65 | — |
| CA Canada | Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender | 2024 | 16 | #254 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 11 | #3,249 |
| BE Belgium | Statbel — Prénoms nouveau-nés (newborns) | 2012 | 5 | #1,484 |
Reference works 4
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
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 are other forms of the name Sylvie?
- In the etymology graph, Silvia, Sylvia and Sylvain are forms of the same name in other languages.
- What does the name Sylvie mean?
- Recorded meaning: Sylvie peut être tantôt le nom scientifique des fauvettes ou une autre appellation de l’anémone des bois dont le rapport avec le prénom tient à l’étymologie du mot sylva , forêt en latin.
- Is Sylvie a male or female name?
- Sylvie is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- In which country does Sylvie have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 270 thousand people named Sylvie in France, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled sylvie.
- How common is the name Sylvie?
- In the United States, the national register counted 6,588 people named Sylvie in 2020, about 1 in 50 thousand residents.
- How common is Sylvie compared with other names?
- In France, Sylvie is the 24th most common given name of 754,146 given names recorded there.
- How do you pronounce Sylvie?
- A machine transcription gives /silvi/ (IPA) for French.
What do you want to know about Sylvie?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/sylvieThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
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, “Sylvie” — the 24th most common given name in France. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.