Sybil
Feminine · Greek roots · “prophetess”
Sybil is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 20,360 girls against 5 boys since 1880.
Sybil comes from the sibyls of the ancient Mediterranean — the oracle-women of Greek and Roman writing, whose supposed prophecies about Christ won them a place in medieval Christian art and, later, on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. English speakers have been using the name since the Middle Ages, when crusading families brought it home from the Mediterranean. It is two soft syllables with the stress up front, and it has never quite left the records since it first appeared on them.
How old is the name Sybil?
Sybil first appears in US birth records in 1881 — 144 years ago. The typical Sybil alive today was born around 1937, making them about 88 years old. About 8,700 people named Sybil are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Sybil most popular?
Sybil peaked in 1919, reaching #282 nationally. Today it ranks #1423, 1,141 places below that high. See the whole 1919 chart.
Sybil appears on this list:
Where it comes from
From Sibylla (Greek) to Sybil
The story of Sybil
The sibyls were prophetesses in Greek and Roman literature, each attached to a place: the Cumaean sibyl near Naples, the Delphic sibyl in Greece. Early Christian writers took them up, arguing that these pagan women had foretold Christ, which is why the sibyls appear in medieval cathedral art and later in Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel frescoes. The name Sibylla traveled with that reputation into medieval Europe and reached England in the twelfth century, becoming Sibyl and Sibilla. The y-spelling grew up alongside it, and Benjamin Disraeli's 1845 novel Sybil gave that version a good deal of visibility in the English-speaking world.
Meaning
prophetess, oracle
The name traces to Greek Sibylla, the word for a prophetess. Where that Greek word itself came from has never been settled — it may not be Greek in origin at all.
How the name formed
- SibyllaGreek
- SibyllaLatin
- Sibylmedieval English
- Sybil
Related forms: Sibylle · Sibylle · Sibilla · Sibila · Sibylla · Sybilla
Pronouncing Sybil
SIB-il
Stress on the first syllable, and the y sounds like a short i — the same as in Sibyl. Some readers reach for SYE-bil on first sight, which is worth expecting and easily corrected.
Nicknames for Sybil
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
- 1881
- Most girls named
- 1919515 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #282reached in 1919
- Change vs 2022
- +4.8%152 in 2025, from 145
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.
Sybil in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Sibylle in French — same name
- Sibylle in German — same name
- Sibilla in Italian — same name
- Sibila in Spanish — same name
- Sibylla in Swedish — same name
- Sybilla in Polish — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, New York.
Sybils among us
people named Sybil are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 10,574 born in 2025 was named Sybil
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Sybil
- #1423
- Sybil on the 2025 chart
- #785
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Sybil went to 152 girls in 2025, but Sibyl 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 — 638 places above the chart.
- Sybil152
- Sibyl23
About 1 girl in 9,184 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 10,574 for Sybil 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 Oma test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Sybil's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Oma climbed just as high around 1901, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Oma's path sketches the road Sybil is walking now.
Sybil is on its second act. Revived names age gently: the generation that wore them first is far enough away that the name feels classic rather than dated.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Sybil is headed
Sybil 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.
Sybil beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Sybil in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A documented record stretching from ancient Greek and Latin writing through medieval England to the present, with no long gap in use.
- Recognizable in French, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish and Polish, all in closely related forms.
- Two short syllables and no consonant clusters; easy to say and easy to hear across accents.
- Established informal short forms — Sib, Sibby — already in use rather than invented on the spot.
- Sybil and Sibyl both have long histories, so the spelling will need saying aloud fairly often. Neither version is wrong, which is precisely why people ask.
- The y-spelling invites SYE-bil on a first reading. A short correction usually settles it, but it will happen more than once.
- The 1973 book and film Sybil, about a woman with dissociative identity disorder, attached the name to that story for a generation. The association has faded considerably but has not vanished for everyone.
- It is uncommon enough now that a child will likely be the only one in her school, while still being familiar to older generations rather than unheard of.
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Sybil
Feminine · Greek roots · #1423 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Sybils are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 8,700 people named Sybil are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Sybil?
- Sybil is the most-used spelling in US records — 152 of the 175 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Sibyl.
- How popular is the name Sybil in 2025?
- Sybil ranks #1423 among US girl names in 2025, with 152 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Sybil?
- About 1 in every 10,574 US girls born in 2025 was named Sybil — 152 in all.
- Will my child share the name Sybil with classmates?
- Sybil will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Sybil
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Kaleah#1423 · Kaira#1423 · Emry#1423 · Desiree#1427 · Zarah#1427 · Aracely#1427 · Evalyn#1427 · Sana#1427
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Sybil? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Sybil and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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