Sibyl
given name · Latin script
Meaning: A pagan female oracle or prophetess, especially the Cumaean sibyl
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/sajbʲɪɫ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Sibyl is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 187K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 234K
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 70K
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.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 255 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 70K (inferred from the name graph)
≈10,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
New Zealand, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
A pagan female oracle or prophetess, especially the Cumaean sibyl.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 9 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Sibyl 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | ≈10,000 est. | ≈1 in 136K | — | Sibyl | 11 |
| US United States | 1,420 | 1 in 234K | 1.4K | Sibyl | 255 |
| ID Indonesia | ≈350 est. | ≈1 in 754K | — | Sibyl | 9 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈350 est. | ≈1 in 187K | listed | Sibyl | 60 |
| CA Canada | ≈260 est. | ≈1 in 147K | 1 | Sibyl | 41 |
| GT Guatemala | ≈180 est. | ≈1 in 98K | — | Sibyl | 7 |
| SE Sweden | 99 | 1 in 103K | 99 | Sibyl | 8 |
| IE Ireland | ≈71 est. | ≈1 in 73K | — | Sibyl | 2 |
| NZ New Zealand | ≈70 est. | ≈1 in 70K | — | Sibyl | 13 |
| FI Finland | ≈50 est. | ≈1 in 111K | 25 | — | 3 |
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 — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; the penguin-baby-names-2009 register; Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup). 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)
Sibyl is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, ancient priestess; pers. name
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In French, Du grec *sibylla*, « prophétesse ».
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
In English, from Greek sibylla, 'prophetess'
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
English: variant spelling of SYBIL . Even in classical times there was confusion between the vowels in this word. Variants: Sibylla (Latinate form, common in Denmark and Sweden); Sibilla; Sibella (by association with the Italian feminine diminutive suffix - ella ) .
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)
- Gertrude of Brandenburgb. 1150not in their usual namePeerage person ID=9013
- Sibyl, Marchioness of Queensberryb. 1845(1845-1935)
- Sibyl Sandersonb. 1864USAmerican operatic soprano (1864-1903)
- Sibyl Wilburb. 1871USAmerican journalist and feminist author
- Sibyl Mary Hathawayb. 1884GBDame of Sark from 1927 until her death
- Sibyl Anikeefb. 1896USAmerican photographer (1896–1996)
- Sibyl Moholy-Nagyb. 1903USGerman-Hungarian American art historian
- Sibyl von der Schulenburgb. 1954ITItalian writer
- Sibyl Heijnenb. 1961NLvisual artist (born 1961)
- Sibyl Buckb. 1972FRAmerican model and musician
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 29 sources across 19 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 1.4K | #9,692 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1919 | 299 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1918 | 299 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1920 | 188 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1921 | 151 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1917 | 118 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1922 | 115 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1923 | 111 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1915 | 110 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1916 | 103 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1924 | 100 | — |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 99 | #8,582 |
Reference works 2
- 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 does the name Sibyl mean, and where does it come from?
- A pagan female oracle or prophetess, especially the Cumaean sibyl. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- What are other forms of the name Sibyl?
- In the etymology graph, Sybil, Sibylle and Sybille are forms of the same name in other languages.
- How do you pronounce Sibyl?
- A machine transcription gives /sajbʲɪɫ/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Sibyl have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 10 thousand people named Sibyl in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled sibyl.
- Is Sibyl a male or female name?
- Sibyl 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.
- How common is the name Sibyl?
- In the United States, the national register counted 1,420 people named Sibyl in 2020, about 1 in 234 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Sibyl?
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/sibylThe 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, “Sibyl”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.