Sibyl
Feminine · “A prophetess”
A sibyl was a prophetess, and the Greeks and Romans took them very seriously: the Sibylline books were consulted by the Roman senate in emergencies for six hundred years. Michelangelo painted five of them on the Sistine ceiling, beside the prophets.
How old is the name Sibyl?
Sibyl was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Sibyl alive today was born around 1923, making them about 102 years old. About 1,300 people named Sibyl are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Sibyl most popular?
Sibyl peaked in 1919, reaching #375 nationally. Today it ranks #5410, 5,035 places below that high. See the whole 1919 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From sibylla to Sibyl
The story of Sibyl
Sibyls were attached to specific places — Cumae, Erythrae, Delphi, Tibur — and the Cumaean Sibyl guides Aeneas to the underworld in Virgil. Christianity absorbed them rather than rejecting them: the sibyls were held to have prophesied Christ to the gentiles as the prophets did to Israel, which is why Michelangelo painted them in the Sistine Chapel alongside Isaiah and Jeremiah. That gave the word a life as a Christian name from the Middle Ages. Its American peak in 1919 sits with the general Edwardian and post-war taste for classical names, and it has been rare since 1940.
Meaningscholars disagree
A prophetess
From Greek sibylla, a prophetic woman. The word's own origin is unknown; an ancient derivation from sios boulla, in a Doric form meaning the will of God, is a folk etymology and not accepted. What is settled is what the word means in use — an inspired woman who delivers oracles — and that it was a title before it was a name.
How the name formed
- sibylla
- Sibylla
- Sibyl
Related forms: Σίβυλλα · Sibylle · Sibylle · Sybil · Sibilla
Pronouncing Sibyl
SIB-ul
Two syllables, stress on the first, with a short i. The final syllable is reduced. German and French Sibylle give both syllables fuller value and stress the second.
Nicknames for Sibyl
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1880
- Most girls named
- 1918299 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #375reached in 1919
- Change vs 2022
- +43.8%23 in 2025, from 16
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Sibyl in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Σίβυλλα in Greek — related form
- Sibylle in German — related form
- Sibylle in French — related form
- Sybil in English — spelling variant
- Sibilla in Italian — related form
Sibyls among us
people named Sibyl are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 69,881 born in 2025 was named Sibyl
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Sibyl
- #5410
- Sibyl on the 2025 chart
- #785
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Sibyl went to 23 girls in 2025, but Sybil is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 175, which makes it the 785th most-given girls’ name of the year — 4,625 places above the chart.
- Sybil152
- Sibyl23
About 1 girl in 9,184 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 69,881 for Sibyl itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Hortense test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Sibyl's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Hortense climbed just as high around 1903, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Hortense's path sketches the road Sibyl is walking now.
Sibyl sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Sibyl beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Sibyl in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The meaning is settled in use and unusually powerful — a woman who speaks prophecy.
- It has a documented classical and Christian history running two thousand years.
- Two syllables and five letters keep it compact.
- Sybil is the commoner English spelling and will be written for it.
- Sybil is the title of a 1973 book and film about dissociative identity disorder, which is a strong association.
- It is strongly dated to the years before 1940 in American ears.
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What they receive
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Sibyl
Feminine · #5410 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Sibyls are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,300 people named Sibyl are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Sibyl?
- Sibyl is one of 2 recorded spellings. Sybil is the more common one — 152 births in 2025 against 23 for Sibyl.
- How popular is the name Sibyl in 2025?
- Sibyl ranks #5410 among US girl names in 2025, with 23 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Sibyl?
- About 1 in every 69,881 US girls born in 2025 was named Sibyl — 23 in all.
- Will my child share the name Sibyl with classmates?
- Sibyl will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Sibyl
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Aina#5410 · Sherry#5410 · Kathia#5410 · Taj#5410 · Analicia#5410 · Divya#5410 · Halimah#5410 · Leo#5410
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Sibyl? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Sibyl and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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