Sylvanus
given name · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˈsɪɫvənɪs/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Sylvanus is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Nigeria than in any other country. Recorded meaning: pers. name.
- NGNigeria≈1 in 6K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 699K
- TGTogo≈1 in 5.9K
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.
- Nigeria (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 166 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 5.9K (inferred from the name graph)
≈36,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Togo, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(inferred from the name graph)
pers. name
Attested across 9 languages in the etymology graph.
Often considered alongside
Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Sylvanus, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.
From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Sylvanus 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NG Nigeria | — | ≈36,000 est. | ≈1 in 6K | — | Sylvanus | 66 |
| TZ Tanzania | — | ≈3,300 est. | ≈1 in 18K | — | Sylvanus | 10 |
| TG Togo | #641 | ≈1,500 est. | ≈1 in 5.9K | — | Sylvanus | 7 |
| GH Ghana | #642 | ≈1,200 est. | ≈1 in 25K | — | Sylvanus | 28 |
| CI Côte d’Ivoire | — | ≈1,100 est. | ≈1 in 26K | — | Sylvanus | 8 |
| BJ Benin | #462 | ≈770 est. | ≈1 in 17K | — | Sylvanus | 14 |
| US United States | — | 476 | 1 in 699K | 475 | Sylvanus | 166 |
| SL Sierra Leone | — | ≈470 est. | ≈1 in 14K | 9 | — | 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; NEC/ECSL — 2018 Local Council, Chairperson and Mayor nominated candidates. 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).
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Sylvanus Thayerb. 1785USUnited States colonel
- Sylvanus William Godonb. 1809USUnited States Navy admiral (1809–1879)
- Sylvanus Cobb, Jr.b. 1823USAmerican writer (1823–1887)
- Sylvanus Stallb. 1847USAmerican writer (1847–1915)
- Sylvanus Bowserb. 1854USAmerican inventor (1854–1938)
- Sylvanus Albert Reedb. 1854USAmerican aerospace engineer (1854–1935)
- Troy Kinneyb. 1871USnot in their usual nameAmerican artist, half of husband-and-wife illustrator duo "The Kinneys" with Margaret West Kinney (1871–1938)
- Sylvanus Morleyb. 1883USAmerican archaeologist, epigrapher, Mayanist scholar, and WWI spy for the U.S. (1883–1948)
- Sylvanus Epiphanio Olympiob. 1902TGPresident of Togo (1902-1963)
- Sylvanus Nimelyb. 1998LRLiberian 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).
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 26 sources across 18 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 475 | #21,351 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1915 | 15 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1922 | 14 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1925 | 13 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1914 | 13 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1919 | 12 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1927 | 11 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1920 | 11 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1929 | 10 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1926 | 10 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1913 | 10 | — |
| SL Sierra Leone | NEC/ECSL — 2018 Local Council, Chairperson and Mayor nominated candidates | 2018 | 9 | #37 |
Reference works 2
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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 Sylvanus mean?
- Recorded meaning: pers. name
- Is Sylvanus a male or female name?
- Sylvanus is a male 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.
- What are other forms of the name Sylvanus?
- In the etymology graph, Sylvain, Silas and Silvano are forms of the same name in other languages.
- How do you pronounce Sylvanus?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈsɪɫvənɪs/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Sylvanus have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 36 thousand people named Sylvanus in Nigeria, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled sylvanus.
- How common is the name Sylvanus?
- In the United States, the national register counted 476 people named Sylvanus in 2020, about 1 in 699 thousand residents.
- How common is Sylvanus compared with other names?
- In Benin, Sylvanus is the 462nd most common given name of 2,017 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Sylvanus?
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/sylvanusThe 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, “Sylvanus” — the 462nd most common given name in Benin. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.