Humanverse

Silver vs Silvestre

American parents have registered 2,457 Silvestres since 1880, against 2,277 Silvers. But in 2025 it was Silver that was commoner, 65 babies to 20.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Silver against Silvestre, 1880 to 2025 0 20 40 60 80 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Silver Silvestre

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Of the 115 years in which either name was published, Silvestre for 81 years and Silver for 34 years. The lead changed hands 24 times.

17 shorter spells of a year or two are folded into the spans above rather than listed separately.

Side by side

  Silver Silvestre
Total US births 2,2772,457
Most in one year 7560
Babies in 2025 6520
Estimated living today 2,0002,000
Median age today 1830
Peak year 20231994
Best rank 3,014th girls1,544th boys
Rank in 2025 3,342nd4,857th
First recorded 18961912
Girls / boys 1,749 / 5280 / 2,457

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Which name is older

Half of the Silvestres alive today are over 30; half the Silvers are over 18. That is 12 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Silver Silvestre
France 10065

Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Silver and Silvestre.