Silas
Masculine
Silas is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 75,465 boys against 184 girls since 1880.
Silas walks out of the Acts of the Apostles, where a man of that name travels with Paul through Asia Minor and Greece in the first century. English Puritans took it up, carried it to New England, and George Eliot put it on the title page of her 1861 novel about a weaver named Silas Marner. Two syllables, stress on the first, the S sounds bracketing it like bookends.
How old is the name Silas?
Silas was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Silas is a kid of about 9 — this name's wave is very recent. About 67,000 people named Silas are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Silas most popular?
Silas peaked in 2025, reaching #71 nationally. Today it ranks #71, exactly where it peaked. See the whole 2025 chart.
Where it comes from
From Silvanus to Silas
The story of Silas
The name is first documented in Greek, in the Acts of the Apostles, borne by a companion of Paul on his journeys through the eastern Mediterranean. From the Greek scriptures it passed into Latin and then into English, where Protestant and especially Puritan families favored biblical names outside the usual Peter-and-John range. It traveled to America with them and stayed in quiet use through the colonial period and the nineteenth century, when Eliot's Silas Marner made it familiar to readers who had never met one. Its recent climb in the United States is a fresh chapter on a very old page.
Meaningscholars disagree
Either "of the forest" or "asked for" — the two readings compete
One line treats Silas as a Greek shortening of the Latin Silvanus, from silva, "wood, forest" — and the New Testament itself supports the link, since the letters of Paul call the same traveling companion Silvanus. The other treats it as a Greek spelling of the Aramaic Sheila, from Hebrew Sha'ul, "asked for, prayed for" — the name English renders as Saul. Both are serious scholarly positions, and neither has won.
How the name formed
- Silvanus
- ΣιλᾶςSilas
- Silas
Related forms: Σίλας · Silvanus · Silas · Silas · Silas · Silas
Pronouncing Silas
SY-luhs
Two syllables, stress on the first, rhyming with "pilus". German and Scandinavian speakers say SEE-lahs, which is worth knowing if the family spans both.
Nicknames for Silas
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 boys named
- 20254,639 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #71reached in 2025
- Change vs 2022
- +15.1%4,639 in 2025, from 4,032
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.
Silas in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Σίλας in Greek — transliteration
- Silvanus in Latin — related form
- Silas in Spanish — same name
- Silas in Portuguese — same name
- Silas in German — same name
- Silas in French — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, Florida.
Silass among us
people named Silas are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 368 born in 2025 was named Silas
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Silas
- #71
- Silas on the 2025 chart
- #60
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Silas went to 4,639 boys in 2025, but Sylas and Cylas are the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 5,421, which makes it the 60th most-given boys’ name of the year — 11 places above the chart.
About 1 boy in 315 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 368 for Silas 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 Allen test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Silas's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Allen climbed just as high around 1940, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Allen's path sketches the road Silas is walking now.
Silas is climbing fast right now. Steep climbs tend to come with steep descents — the quicker a name arrives, the more firmly it belongs to its moment.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Silas is headed
Silas should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
High confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Silas beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Silas in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A spelling most English speakers already know from scripture and from Eliot's novel, so it rarely needs to be spelled out loud.
- Documented continuously in English since the Puritan era — a long record rather than a recent coinage.
- Identical in spelling across Spanish, Portuguese, French and German, needing no adaptation abroad.
- Has a ready-made short form in Si, used informally for generations, for anyone who wants one.
- It is climbing quickly. A child named Silas now may share classrooms with others later, even though that is unlikely today.
- The meaning is genuinely unsettled between "forest" and "asked for", so you cannot promise a relative one clean answer.
- Sylas and Silus turn up as variant spellings, and some listeners first hear Cyrus, so expect an occasional correction.
- Silas Marner is a miser for much of the novel before he isn't — a literary shadow that most readers no longer carry.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Silas
Masculine · #71 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Silass are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 67,000 people named Silas are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Silas?
- Silas is the most-used spelling in US records — 4,639 of the 5,421 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Sylas and Cylas.
- How popular is the name Silas in 2025?
- Silas ranks #71 among US boy names in 2025, with 4,639 babies given the name.
- How common is the name Silas?
- About 1 in every 368 US boys born in 2025 was named Silas — 4,639 in all.
- Will my child share the name Silas with classmates?
- Silas will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Silas
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Enzo#72 · Jayden#70 · Lincoln#69 · Andrew#73 · Christopher#68 · Adrian#74 · Atlas#75 · Angel#67
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Silas? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Silas and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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