Entry № 10214 · Greek origin

Sybil Sybil — Meaning, Origin & Baby Name Popularity

/ SIB-il /
Gender
Girl
Origin
Greek
Meaning
"Prophetess"
Syllables
2
First recorded
Ancient (Greek)

A name that means "prophetess".

Sybil comes from the sibyls, the revered women of the ancient Greek and Roman world who spoke prophecy as oracles of the gods.

A Victorian favourite lately back in the spotlight — think Lady Sybil of Downton Abbey — it has an elegant, old-world charm.

Thoughtful and a little mystical, Sybil is a name that seems to know things.

A prophetess — wise and vintage.

The name in its native script.

Σίβυλλα
Transliteration
Síbylla
Pronunciation
/ ˈsɪb.ɪl /
Root
Grammatical form

Where Sybil stands.

Sybil does not currently appear in the US Social Security Administration's top 1,000 girls' names, so we don't publish a US rank or birth count for it. That says nothing about the name's standing elsewhere in the world — only that it sits outside the ranked US data we rely on.

Sybils before her.

Real people
Sybil Thorndike
British actress.
1882 – 1976
In fiction
Lady Sybil Crawley
Character in Downton Abbey.
ITV, 2010
Sibyl Vane
Heroine of The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Oscar Wilde, 1890

Names connected to Sybil.

The number behind Sybil.

4

The Builder

In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Sybil reduce to 4, The Builder. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.