From the first name "Silvestro", derived from the Latin "silvester" = who lives in the wood, not educated, wild.

The surname Silvestro and its variants have an origin clearly linked to the Latin personal name Silvester. According to E. De Felice, this name derives from the adjective silvester (silvestris), whose meaning points back to "of the woods, of the forests," but also, in a figurative sense, to "rough" or "uncultured," from silva ("forest"). De Felice further highlights that the name was consolidated in the Middle Ages thanks to the prestige of several popes and saints called Silvestro, which favoured its diffusion as a surname.

For his part, F. De Laurentiis notes that Silvestro presents a medium-high diffusion in the south, the centre (including Tuscany) and the north-west of Italy, confirming its base in the Latin Silvestru(m). He stresses that the term preserves both the sense of "inhabitant of the wood" and the nuance of rusticity, thus maintaining the double semantic charge of the original adjective.

Meanwhile, A. Bongioanni places the accent on the onomastic value of the name, linked also to Silvano, and highlights the importance of the cult of Saint Silvester, pope celebrated on 31 December, as a key factor in its diffusion. He also observes the phonetic transformations that gave rise to numerous variants —such as Silvestri, Salvestri, Silvestrelli, Vestri or Vestrini—, in which vowel changes (i/e/a) and reductions proper to the dialect evolution of the surname in different regions of Italy are recorded.