# Sylvester (surname)

Source: https://namelineage.com/surname/sylvester/  
Publisher: Name Lineage. Counts from the US Census Bureau; origin and etymology from Wiktionary; bearers from Wikidata. Data updated 2026-11-11.

A surname.

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Origin | Latin |
| Type | not recorded |
| People in the US (2010 Census) | 18,896 |
| US rank (2010) | 1,901 of 162,253 |
| How often | about 1 in every 16,339 people |
| Change since 2000 | +2.4% (18,445 in 2000) |
| Pronunciation | /sɪlˈvɛstɚ/, 3 syllables |
| Variant spellings | none recorded |

## Etymology

Borrowed from Latin sylvester (“woody, rural”) from silva (“wood”); name of a saint whose feast day falls on December 31.

## Who carries it

Share of people named Sylvester in the 2010 US Census by the Census's own race and ethnicity groups. The Census suppresses a share when the count behind it is small.

| Group | Share |
|---|---|
| White (not Hispanic) | 73% |
| Black (not Hispanic) | 21% |
| Hispanic or Latino (any race) | 2.6% |
| Asian and Pacific Islander | 0.9% |
| American Indian and Alaska Native | 0.8% |
| Two or more races | 1.9% |

## Where

Wikidata records people named Sylvester in the United States, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Hungary.

## People named Sylvester

- William Sylvester, American film actor (1922-1995)
- Mike Sylvester, American-Italian basketball player and coach
- Harold Sylvester, American actor
- Charles Sylvester, British civil engineer and chemist
- János Sylvester, 16th-century Hungarian figure of the Reformation

## Similar surnames

Silvestri, Silvestre, Sylvestre, Silvester, Silvestro, Silvas, Schlabach, Slabaugh, Silvis, Slavik, Salvaggio, Selvage.

## How to read these numbers

A Census count is people alive and counted in 2010, not births, and names occurring fewer than 100 times are not published at all. Ethnicity shares are the Census's own categories.