Sylvia

The name Sylvia is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "from the forest". The musical, sylvan Sylvia seems poised to join former friends Frances and Beatrice and Dorothy back in the nursery. Sylvia has been consistently on the popularity list since records started being kept. She was a Top 100 name from 1932 to 1948, reaching a high of Number 48 in 1932. Spelled Silvia, she was the mother of the twins Remus and Romulus, who were the mythological founders of Rome, and was a character in Shakespeare's Two Gentlemen of Verona. The Bard also penned the immortal lines "Who is Silvia? what is she, that all our swains admire her?" -- words echoed in the Edward Albee play The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? Sylvias have also played major roles in Clare Booth Luce's classic play The Women and the Fellini film La Dolce Vita. Sylvia Plath was the Tragic Heroine of modern poetry. The French Sylvie is an appealing alternative.