Shari
Feminine
Shari is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 40,927 girls against 46 boys since 1880.
Shari sits at the meeting point of three names — Sharon, Sherry and Cheryl — and takes something from each. In the mid-century American naming landscape those three were heard as a family, and Shari is the shortest way into it.
How old is the name Shari?
Shari first appears in US birth records in 1927 — 98 years ago. The typical Shari alive today was born around 1965, making them about 60 years old. About 36,500 people named Shari are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Shari most popular?
Shari peaked in 1961, reaching #142 nationally. Today it ranks #10917, 10,775 places below that high. See the whole 1961 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Sharon to Shari
The story of Shari
Sharon entered American use in the twentieth century as a biblical place name rather than a person's name, and it rose enormously through the 1940s. Cheryl and Sherry rose beside it, and the three shared a sound-world so completely that families moved between them freely. Shari is the shortest spelling in that group, registered as a legal name from the 1940s and peaking in the late 1950s.
Meaningscholars disagree
Not established
Read as a short form of Sharon, the meaning is the Hebrew place name — the fertile coastal plain of Israel, and the 'rose of Sharon' of the Song of Songs. Read as a spelling of Sherry it inherits that name's unsettled parentage. There is also an unrelated Hebrew name Shari, and a Hungarian Sári that is a form of Sarah. Which applies is a family fact.
How the name formed
- Sharon
- Shari
Related forms: Sharon · Sári · Sherry
Pronouncing Shari
SHAR-ee
Two syllables, stress on the first, the a as in 'car'. Some speakers say SHER-ee, which brings it closer to Sherry.
Nicknames for Shari
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1927
- Most girls named
- 19613,117 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #142reached in 1961
- Change vs 2023
- +33.3%8 in 2025, from 6
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Shari in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Sharon in Hebrew — related form
- Sári in Hungarian — related form
- Sherry in English — related form
Sharis among us
people named Shari are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 200,908 born in 2025 was named Shari
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Winifred test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Shari's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Winifred climbed just as high around 1917, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Winifred's path sketches the road Shari is walking now.
Shari sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Shari beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Shari in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Sharon behind it is a real biblical place with a documented and attractive meaning.
- Five letters, two syllables, and nothing silent.
- It sits comfortably beside a whole generation of related sounds.
- The parentage is genuinely unsettled between three unrelated names.
- Two pronunciations of the first vowel are current.
- It is closely dated to the middle of the twentieth century.
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What they receive
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Shari
Feminine · #10917 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Sharis are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 36,500 people named Shari are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Shari in 2025?
- Shari ranks #10917 among US girl names in 2025, with 8 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Shari?
- About 1 in every 200,908 US girls born in 2025 was named Shari — 8 in all.
- Will my child share the name Shari with classmates?
- Shari will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Shari
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Edythe#10917 · Tessie#10917 · Drusilla#10917 · Eugenie#10917 · Ivah#10917 · Karri#10917 · Claribel#10917 · Myrtle#10917
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Shari? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Shari and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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