Shera
Feminine
Shera is a modern American coinage, and there is a woman in the Hebrew Bible with almost exactly the same name who does something nobody else in the book does. Sheerah appears in a genealogy in Chronicles, in a single verse, and the verse says she built three towns. No other woman in the Hebrew Bible is credited with founding a city.
How old is the name Shera?
Shera first appears in US birth records in 1938 — 87 years ago. The typical Shera alive today was born around 1980, making them about 45 years old. About 1,400 people named Shera are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Shera most popular?
Shera peaked in 1986, reaching #1097 nationally. See the whole 1986 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From A productive American front and a short ending to Shera
Our story of Shera
The verse is easy to miss. It comes in the middle of a long genealogical list, gives a woman's name, and states that she built two towns and a third one named after her. That is all. There is no story, no explanation of how a woman came to be building fortified settlements in that period, and no further mention of her anywhere. Commentators have argued about whether the verb means she founded them, rebuilt them, or paid for the work, and the text does not help. What makes the verse remarkable is that it survived at all: a genealogy is precisely the kind of document that drops information it does not need, and somebody kept this. The modern name has no connection to it and arrived by an ordinary American route, which is worth saying so that the good story is not attached to the wrong name.
Meaningnot established
Not established
The American name has no established source: it belongs to a family of coinages built from a productive front and a short ending. The biblical name is a separate matter, connected to a Hebrew word about kinship, and it is not the source of the modern name. Reading it in would be inventing an ancestry, which is worth refusing even though it would be a flattering one.
How the name formed
- A productive American front and a short ending
- Shera appearing in the registers in the mid-century
- A rise and fall inside two generations
- Unconnected to the similar biblical name
Pronouncing Shera
SHEER-uh
Two syllables, stress on the first. Some families say SHAIR-uh instead, with the vowel of share, and the spelling supports both readings equally, so it is worth settling which you mean.
Nicknames for Shera
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
- 1938
- Most girls named
- 1986135 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1097reached in 1986
- Change vs 2004
- 0.0%6 in 2013, from 6
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.
Sheras among us
people named Shera 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
Shera 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 is short, soft and immediately sayable once the vowel is established.
- Sher and Shay are two very different short forms and both are current.
- It is genuinely uncommon while being made entirely of familiar material.
- The first vowel is unsettled and strangers will guess wrong about half the time.
- There is no meaning to give, and the biblical near-neighbor is a different name.
- It will be written Sheera, Shira or Sherra by people taking it from speech.
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Shera
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Sheras are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,400 people named Shera are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Shera in 2025?
- Shera is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Shera with classmates?
- Shera 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 Shera? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Shera and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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