Silvia

Silvia grows from the Latin silva, forest, and in Roman legend it names Rhea Silvia, the vestal whose sons Romulus and Remus founded the city. Shakespeare borrowed it for the beloved of The Two Gentlemen of Verona, prompting the lovely song Who is Silvia? which Schubert set three centuries later. The name has kept a steady European life in Italy and Spain, where it never drifted far from the top hundred, and a quieter one in English. Two or three syllables, SEEL-vyah or SIL-vee-ah. It reads green and sun-dappled, the name of a girl at ease among trees, books, and long summer afternoons.