Sheldon
Masculine · “steep valley”
Sheldon is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 36,676 boys against 496 girls since 1880.
Sheldon is a steep-sided valley, or a hill with a shelf — the English place name occurs in three counties and the elements differ slightly in each.
How old is the name Sheldon?
Sheldon first appears in US birth records in 1881 — 144 years ago. The typical Sheldon alive today was born around 1963, making them about 62 years old. About 24,500 people named Sheldon are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Sheldon most popular?
Sheldon peaked in 1936, reaching #247 nationally. Today it ranks #2765, 2,518 places below that high. See the whole 1936 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From scelf + dun to Sheldon
The story of Sheldon
Sheldon is a place name in Derbyshire, Devon and Warwickshire, and the families from them carried the surname. It crossed into American given-name use in the nineteenth century — the ordinary route for English surnames — and was taken up particularly by Jewish-American families as an English-sounding name. Sheldon peaked in American records around 1937.
Meaningscholars disagree
steep valley; shelf hill
Three English Sheldons give three readings: the Derbyshire one from scelf, 'shelf', and dun, 'hill'; the Devon one from scylf and denu, 'valley'; the Warwickshire one from a word for a heath. The dun and denu elements are secure; which applies depends on the place.
How the name formed
- scelf + dun
- Sheldon
Related forms: Shelden · Shelton
Pronouncing Sheldon
SHEL-dun
Two syllables, stress on the first. No variation between English accents.
Nicknames for Sheldon
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
- 1881
- Most boys named
- 1991547 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #247reached in 1936
- Change vs 2022
- −32.4%46 in 2025, from 68
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.
Sheldon in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Shelden in English — spelling variant
- Shelton in English — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, New York, Florida.
Sheldons among us
people named Sheldon are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 37,132 born in 2025 was named Sheldon
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 Elmo test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Sheldon's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Elmo climbed just as high around 1909, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Elmo's path sketches the road Sheldon is walking now.
Sheldon 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 Sheldon is headed
Sheldon 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.
Sheldon beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Sheldon in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Documented English places in three counties stand behind it.
- Shel and Don are two short forms with quite different feels.
- Two firm syllables that pair well with almost any surname.
- The elements differ between the three places, so the meaning is not single.
- A long-running television character has dominated the name since 2007.
- It is period-coded to the early twentieth century.
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Sheldon
Masculine · #2765 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Sheldons are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 24,500 people named Sheldon are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Sheldon in 2025?
- Sheldon ranks #2765 among US boy names in 2025, with 46 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Sheldon?
- About 1 in every 37,132 US boys born in 2025 was named Sheldon — 46 in all.
- Will my child share the name Sheldon with classmates?
- Sheldon will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Sheldon
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Asante#2765 · Yandel#2765 · Mills#2765 · Dwight#2765 · Arlin#2765 · Jafet#2765 · Stephon#2765 · Shlok#2765
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Sheldon? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Sheldon and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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