Sy vs Sylvie

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Sy Sylvie

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 92 years in which either name was published, Sylvie for 75 years and Sy for 17 years. The lead changed hands 14 times.

• 1909–1916 Sylvie ahead
• 1917–1926 Sy ahead
• 1933–1973 Sylvie ahead, apart from 2 short spells
• 1977–1982 Sy ahead
• 1987–2025 Sylvie ahead

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

Side by side

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 Sys alive today are over 25; half the Sylvies are over 5. That is 20 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Both names abroad

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

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

• Sy vs Sylvia
• Sy vs Sydney
• Sy vs Sylvester
• Sy vs Sybil
• Sy vs Sylas
• Sylvie vs Sylvia
• Sylvie vs Sylvester
• Sylvie vs Sylas