Sylvester

Latin

"wood, forest"

Sylvester Origin and Meaning

The name Sylvester is a boy's name of English, Latin origin meaning "wood, forest".

This name of three early popes has been associated in recent years with a cocky cartoon cat ("Thufferin' thuccatash!") and the Italian Stallion hero of the Rocky and Rambo movies (who was born Michael) — and yet we think it just might be ready to move further back into the mainstream.

Sylvester was at its height in the 1920s, when it was in the Top 200, and hung on in the lower rungs of the ladder until 1994. Lately the name has been most visible as a surname — that of Sue Sylvester on Glee. Model Emily Ratajkowski named her son Sylvester Apollo in 2021.

Trivia tidbit--in the 1935 movie Sylvia Scarlett, the young Katharine Hepburn disguises herself as a boy named Sylvester — until she meets Cary Grant!

Sylvester Rank in US Top 1000

# 962 in the US

Sylvester Rank in Nameberry Top 1000

# 876 on Nameberry

Popularity of the name Sylvester

• 876 Nameberry 2025
• 978 Unique 2019
• 76 Cats 2021

20 Names Similar to Sylvester

These 20 names were selected by our users that were looking for other names like Sylvester.

• Pascal
• Virgil
• Klaus
• Cecil
• Oswald
• Seymour
• Claude
• Lionel
• Mortimer
• Neville
• Luther
• Bartholomew
• Wolfgang
• Lloyd
• Clement
• Nigel
• Augustine
• Ferdinand
• Solomon
• Clarence

Famous People Named Sylvester

• Sylvester Groth German actor
• Popes Sylvester I III
• Sylvester "Sly Stone" Stewart American musician, producer, and funk pioneer
• Sylvester Churchill American Civil War colonel
• Sylvester Samuels aka Lil Ru American rapper
• Sylvester Croom American NFL football player and coach
• Robert Sylvester "R." Kelly American R&B singer
• Michael Sylvester Stallone American actor, director and producer
• Sylvester Lefort (born Thomas La Ruffa) French pro wrestler
• Sylvester McCoy (born Percy James Patrick Kent Smith), Scottish actor

The name Sylvester in Pop Culture

• Sylvester the Cat Looney Tunes character
• Sylvester Marcus character in movie "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World"
• Sylvester "Slice" Walters character on TV's "Raising the Bar"
• Sylvestre Munsey character from MK Robinson's "The Absolutely True Story of Exactly What Might Have Happened to Sylvestre Munsey"
• Sylvester the Duke of Salford, character in "Sylvester" by Georgette Heyer
• Sylvester Pemberton aka The Star Spangled Kid or Skyman, DC Comics superhero
• Sylvester donkey in children's book "Sylvester and the Magic Pebble" by William Steig
• Sue Sylvester character on TV's "Glee"
• Sylvester character in rap opera "Trapped In The Closet"
• Sylvester character on TV show "Scorpion"

International Variations of the name Sylvester

• Sivestro Spanish
• Silvester French
• Silvestre Spanish
• Silvestio Spanish
• Silvestro Italian
• Sylwester Polish