Shelia
Feminine · “blind”
Shelia is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 47,780 girls against 111 boys since 1880.
Shelia is Sheila with two letters swapped, and it appears in American records often enough and consistently enough to have become a name in its own right rather than a persistent error.
How old is the name Shelia?
Shelia first appears in US birth records in 1915 — 110 years ago. The typical Shelia alive today was born around 1961, making them about 64 years old. About 41,000 people named Shelia are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Shelia most popular?
Shelia peaked in 1959, reaching #170 nationally. See the whole 1959 chart.
Where it comes from
From caecus to Shelia
The story of Shelia
Caecilia became Síle in Irish, and English speakers wrote what they heard as Sheila. The name spread through Ireland, Britain and Australia — where it briefly became a general word for a woman — and reached America in the twentieth century. Shelia is the transposed spelling, which appears in American records in real numbers from the 1930s and peaked in the mid-1960s, running as a genuine parallel name rather than a scattering of mistakes.
Meaning
blind
Through Sheila, from the Irish Síle, which is the Irish form of the Latin Caecilia — from caecus, 'blind'. The Roman family name Caecilius carried the same root, and the fourth-century martyr Cecilia made it a saint's name across Europe.
How the name formed
- caecus
- Caecilia
- Síle
- Sheila
- Shelia
Related forms: Síle · Sheila · Cecilia · Cecilia
Pronouncing Shelia
SHEE-luh
Two syllables, stress on the first. Shelia and Sheila are said identically, which is exactly why the transposition survives.
Nicknames for Shelia
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
- 1915
- Most girls named
- 19592,283 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #170reached in 1959
- Change vs 2021
- −22.2%7 in 2023, from 9
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.
Shelia in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Síle in Irish — related form
- Sheila in English — spelling variant
- Cecilia in Italian — related form
- Cecilia in Spanish — related form
Shelias among us
people named Shelia 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
Shelia has already lived its whole cycle: it rose, had its era, and has stepped off the charts. The fashion question is behind it — what lies ahead is the waiting room where revivals begin, once a name's first generation has grown distant enough for it to sound fresh again.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- Cecilia stands behind it with a documented Roman and Christian history.
- It has a genuine independent record in American registers rather than being only a variant.
- Two soft syllables with no pronunciation risk.
- Sheila is much the commoner spelling and will be assumed, and the transposition is easy to read as a typing error.
- The literal meaning is 'blind', which some families will want to weigh.
- In Australian English sheila has been a general word for a woman.
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What they receive
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Shelia
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Shelias are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 41,000 people named Shelia are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Shelia in 2025?
- Shelia is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Shelia with classmates?
- Shelia 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 Shelia? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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