Sharman
Feminine · “a shearer of cloth”
Sharman is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 1,014 girls against 28 boys since 1880.
Sherman means a man who shears cloth. It is one of the trade surnames of the medieval English wool industry — the shearman went over the finished cloth with enormous shears, cutting the nap flat, which was skilled and badly paid work and produced a surname that outlived the trade by five hundred years.
How old is the name Sharman?
Sharman first appears in US birth records in 1947 — 78 years ago. The typical Sharman alive today was born around 1953, making them about 72 years old. About 800 people named Sharman are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Sharman most popular?
Sharman peaked in 1950, reaching #668 nationally. See the whole 1950 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From the medieval English cloth trade produces trade surnames to Sharman
The story of Sharman
Cutting the nap was the last stage of finishing woolen cloth, and it decided the price. The shearman worked with shears three or four feet long, hinged at one end, going over the cloth again and again to take the raised fibers down to an even surface. It was one of the trades that machinery destroyed early and completely, and the men who did it in Yorkshire were among the most militant of the workers who smashed the machines in the 1810s. The surname is commonest in exactly those counties.
Meaning
a shearer of cloth
The English cloth trade produced a whole shelf of surnames — Weaver, Fuller, Tucker, Walker, Dyer, Sherman — most of which are now completely opaque to the people carrying them. A fuller and a tucker and a walker all did the same job under different regional names. Sharman is a spelling variant of the same word, and it became an American first name for daughters in the middle of the last century.
How the name formed
- the medieval English cloth trade produces trade surnames
- a shearman finishes woolen cloth with long shears
- machinery destroys the trade in the early 1800s
- the surname becomes an American first name
- Sharman used for daughters from the 1940s
Related forms: Sherman · Shearman
Pronouncing Sharman
SHAR-mun
Two syllables, stress at the front. The second syllable is unstressed enough that Sharman and Sherman are nearly indistinguishable in speech.
Nicknames for Sharman
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
- 1947
- Most girls named
- 1950160 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #668reached in 1950
- Change vs 1980
- 0.0%7 in 1983, from 7
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.
Sharman in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Sherman in English — spelling variant
- Shearman in English — spelling variant
Sharmans among us
people named Sharman are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Sharman sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- It has a real trade behind it with a concrete and interesting history.
- It works for a child of either sex, and the record carries it on both sides.
- It is read correctly at sight and holds no surprises.
- Sherman is far commoner and carries a Civil War general with it.
- It reads unmistakably as a surname to most people.
- It is closely dated to the middle of the last century.
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Sharman
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Sharmans are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 800 people named Sharman are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Sharman in 2025?
- Sharman is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Sharman with classmates?
- Sharman will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More S names
The most-given names starting with S, all years combined.
Susan#1085 · Sarah#90 · Sandra#1207 · Stephanie#557 · Sharon#1250 · Shirley#1581 · Samantha#151 · Sophia#5
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Sharman? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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