Sheilah
Feminine · “blind”
The h on the end is borrowed from the wrong tradition. English adds a final h to names out of Hebrew, which is where Sarah, Deborah and Hannah get theirs. Sheila is Irish and has no business with it, but the h arrived anyway, because by the time the name was common in America a final h simply looked like what a woman's name should have.
How old is the name Sheilah?
Sheilah first appears in US birth records in 1924 — 101 years ago. The typical Sheilah alive today was born around 1956, making them about 69 years old. About 1,900 people named Sheilah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Sheilah most popular?
Sheilah peaked in 1955, reaching #663 nationally. See the whole 1955 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Síle to Sheilah
The story of Sheilah
In Australia the name stopped being a name. Sheila became, and remains, the ordinary colloquial word for a woman there, in the same way bloke serves for a man. It happened in the nineteenth century, when Irish names were so common among immigrants that a few of them became generic: a Paddy was any Irishman, and a Sheila was any Irishwoman, and then simply any woman at all. The word has outlived that origin completely and most Australians using it have no idea it was ever anybody's name. It is one of the few cases where a personal name has been fully absorbed into a language as a common noun and stayed there.
Meaning
blind
The chain runs back to a Roman family name whose sense was blind. That is uncomfortable but well established, and the Irish name is a borrowing of it rather than a native formation. The h changes nothing about any of that.
How the name formed
- Síle
- Sheila
- Sheilah
Related forms: Síle · Caecilia · Cecilia
Pronouncing Sheilah
SHEE-luh
Two syllables with the stress at the front. The added h is entirely silent and changes nothing that can be heard.
Nicknames for Sheilah
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
- 1924
- Most girls named
- 1955199 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #663reached in 1955
- Change vs 2007
- −28.6%5 in 2009, 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.
Sheilah in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Síle in Irish — same name
- Caecilia in Latin — related form
- Cecilia in Italian — related form
Sheilahs among us
people named Sheilah 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
Sheilah 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
- The sound is soft and completely settled, and nobody mispronounces it.
- The final h gives the written name a weight the plain spelling does not have.
- It reaches back through Irish to a Roman family name, which is a long line for a short name.
- Sheila is the standard spelling and the h will be dropped by other people constantly.
- In Australia the name is an everyday word for a woman, which travelers will meet.
- The name is closely tied to the mid-century decades of its use.
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Sheilah
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Sheilahs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,900 people named Sheilah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Sheilah in 2025?
- Sheilah is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Sheilah with classmates?
- Sheilah 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 Sheilah? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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