Humanverse

Sybil vs Syble

American parents have registered 20,365 Sybils since 1880, against 5,541 Sybles. Sybil is still ahead, with 152 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Sybil against Syble, 1880 to 2025 0 150 300 450 600 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Sybil Syble

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

Sybil has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1881 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1932, when Sybil had 268 and Syble had 145.

Side by side

  Sybil Syble
Total US births 20,3655,541
Most in one year 541225
Babies in 2025 152under 5
Estimated living today 8,4001,200
Median age today 6380
Peak year 19211920
Best rank 285th girls448th girls
Rank in 2025 1,423rdunranked
First recorded 18811895
Girls / boys 20,360 / 55,541 / 0

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 Sybles alive today are over 80; half the Sybils are over 63. That is 17 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.

Compare something else

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