Sheila
Feminine · “Irish form of Cecilia”
Sheila is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 238,774 girls against 648 boys since 1880. See Sheila as a boy name
Sheila is the English writing of the Irish Síle, and it traveled so far that Newfoundland named a March storm after it. Two syllables, a long ee and a soft close: a name said the same way on three continents for well over a century.
How old is the name Sheila?
Sheila first appears in US birth records in 1907 — 118 years ago. The typical Sheila alive today was born around 1960, making them about 65 years old. About 195,000 people named Sheila are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Sheila most popular?
Sheila peaked in 1963, reaching #50 nationally. Today it ranks #2645, 2,595 places below that high. See the whole 1963 chart.
Sheila appears on this list:
Where it comes from
From Caecilia to Sheila
The story of Sheila
Cecilia came to Ireland with the Normans, and Irish speakers made it their own as Síle. English clerks, meeting the name spoken rather than written, set it down the way it sounded, and Sheila, Sheelagh and Shelagh all come out of that meeting. Irish emigrants carried it to Newfoundland, where the wet snowstorm that often follows Saint Patrick's Day is still called Sheila's Brush, after the woman folk tradition variously makes Patrick's wife, sister or mother. In 1962 Tommy Roe took a song called 'Sheila' to the top of the American charts, at a time when the name was already well established in American families.
Meaning
Irish form of Cecilia, from a Roman family name
Síle was how Irish speakers took in the Norman Cecilia, and English speakers then wrote Síle down by ear as Sheila.
How the name formed
- Caecilia
- Cecilia
- Síle
- Sheila
Related forms: Síle · Sheelagh · Shelagh · Sìleas · Caecilia
Pronouncing Sheila
SHEE-luh
The Irish Síle is said the same way; the ei of the English spelling is there to write the long ee.
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
- 1907
- Most girls named
- 19628,778 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #50reached in 1963
- Change vs 2023
- −36.3%65 in 2025, from 102
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.
Sheila in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Síle in Irish — same name
- Sheelagh in Irish English — spelling variant
- Shelagh in English — spelling variant
- Sìleas in Scottish Gaelic — related form
- Caecilia in Latin — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, New York, Texas.
Sheilas among us
people named Sheila are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 24,727 born in 2025 was named Sheila
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Sheila
- #2645
- Sheila on the 2025 chart
- #817
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Sheila went to 65 girls in 2025, but Sheyla is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 143, which makes it the 817th most-given girls’ name of the year — 1,828 places above the chart.
- Sheyla78
- Sheila65
About 1 girl in 11,240 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 24,727 for Sheila itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Sylvia test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Sheila's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Sylvia climbed just as high around 1937, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Sylvia's path sketches the road Sheila is walking now.
Sheila 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
Where Sheila is headed
Sheila should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
Medium confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Sheila beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Sheila in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Spelled and said the same way across Ireland, Britain, Australia and North America.
- A long, unbroken record in American use stretching back more than a century.
- Has the older Irish-looking spellings Sheelagh and Shelagh for families who want them.
- Short and clear, with no letters that need explaining.
- In Australia and New Zealand 'sheila' is still casual slang for any woman, so a Sheila there will hear her name used about other people.
- The name is still strongly represented among older generations and rare among babies, so a young Sheila will stand out among her classmates.
- The spelling turns up very occasionally for boys, but it is a girl's name in every tradition behind it, and a boy called Sheila would spend a lot of time explaining it.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Sheila
Feminine · #2645 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Sheilas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 195,000 people named Sheila are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Sheila?
- Sheila is one of 2 recorded spellings. Sheyla is the more common one — 78 births in 2025 against 65 for Sheila.
- How popular is the name Sheila in 2025?
- Sheila ranks #2645 among US girl names in 2025, with 65 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Sheila?
- About 1 in every 24,727 US girls born in 2025 was named Sheila — 65 in all.
- Will my child share the name Sheila with classmates?
- Sheila will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Sheila
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Caliana#2645 · Aaira#2645 · Wylie#2645 · Henrietta#2645 · Mahogany#2645 · Amaiah#2645 · Charlize#2645 · Esra#2645
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Sheila? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Sheila and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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