Shereen
Feminine · “sweet”
Shereen is the Persian word for sweet, and it belongs to one of the great love stories of the Islamic world. The romance of Khosrow and Shirin has been retold for nine hundred years in Persian, Turkish, Kurdish, Urdu and Azerbaijani, and the character it is named for is a Christian Armenian princess who is, unusually for the genre, the more interesting of the two lovers.
How old is the name Shereen?
Shereen first appears in US birth records in 1937 — 88 years ago. The typical Shereen alive today was born around 1979, making them about 46 years old. About 1,500 people named Shereen are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Shereen most popular?
Shereen peaked in 1965, reaching #1801 nationally. See the whole 1965 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From A Persian adjective meaning sweet to Shereen
The story of Shereen
The version everybody knows was written in the twelfth century by the Persian poet Nizami, and it is long, strange and much more interested in Shirin than in the king who pursues her. The subplot that stayed in the popular imagination belongs to a stonemason called Farhad, who falls in love with her and is told he can have her if he cuts a channel through a mountain, and who nearly finishes before being told a lie about her death. The mountain is real: there is a relief carved into a cliff face in western Iran that the story attaches itself to. Nine centuries of poets in half a dozen languages have retold it, argued with it and rewritten the ending, which is the treatment reserved for the stories a culture cannot let alone.
Meaning
sweet
The Persian adjective means sweet, in the ordinary sense of taste as well as the figurative one, and it is an everyday word in modern Persian. The reading is not in dispute anywhere. The English spelling with two e's is one of several transliterations in use; Persian writes the vowel with a single letter and the various English spellings are all attempts at the same sound rather than different names.
How the name formed
- A Persian adjective meaning sweet
- The heroine of a twelfth-century Persian romance
- Retold in Turkish, Kurdish, Urdu and Azerbaijani
- Shereen, Shirin and Shirine as English spellings
Related forms: Shirin · Shirin · Sirin
Pronouncing Shereen
shuh-REEN
Two syllables with the stress at the back. Persian gives the first syllable a fuller vowel, closer to shee than to shuh, and puts a light stress there as well, so the native pronunciation is slightly more even than the English one.
Nicknames for Shereen
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
- 1937
- Most girls named
- 198447 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1801reached in 1965
- Change vs 2017
- −16.7%5 in 2019, 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.
Shereen in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Shirin in Persian — transliteration
- Shirin in Arabic — transliteration
- Sirin in Turkish — related form
Shereens among us
people named Shereen 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
Shereen 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 has a documented meaning in a living language and one of the pleasanter ones available.
- The sound is easy for English speakers and needs no coaching at all.
- It carries a major literary tradition that almost nobody in the West knows about.
- There are several English spellings of the same Persian word and yours will be written as one of the others.
- It will be heard as Sharon, Shireen or Charlene depending on how carefully people listen.
- The literary background needs telling, because it is invisible to anyone outside the tradition.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Shereen to the vote.
Add it to a family vote or a couple’s swipe deck — the other person gets one card, a simple answer and room to say why. No app, no account for them.
Only the people you invite can see your list.
Already decided on Shereen? Hide it among decoys and let them guess.
What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Shereen
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Shereens are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,500 people named Shereen are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Shereen in 2025?
- Shereen is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Shereen with classmates?
- Shereen 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 Shereen? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Shereen and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
Compare side by sideIn a hurry? Just pick a winner — one tap, no sign-up, and you see how everyone else voted.
Weighing a whole shortlist? Add the rest in the builder, or settle it with a bracket.
Cast your vote
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
No advertising trackers and no data sellinghow we handle your dataindependent and founder-run, about Name Battle