Sherwood
Masculine · “shire wood”
Sherwood is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 5,671 boys against 11 girls since 1880.
Sherwood is either the shire wood or the bright wood, and Old English will not say which. Scir meant both a shire — an administrative district — and bright or clear, and the two words are spelled identically in the records. So the most famous forest in English legend has a name with two readings and no way to choose.
How old is the name Sherwood?
Sherwood first appears in US birth records in 1891 — 134 years ago. The typical Sherwood alive today was born around 1942, making them about 83 years old. About 2,300 people named Sherwood are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Sherwood most popular?
Sherwood peaked in 1938, reaching #532 nationally. See the whole 1938 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From scir wudu to Sherwood
The story of Sherwood
Sherwood was a royal forest in Nottinghamshire, which in medieval terms meant an area under forest law rather than an unbroken wood — much of it was heath and farmland where the king held hunting rights and the penalties for poaching were severe. That legal fact is what generated the outlaw stories: a forest full of deer that a hungry population was forbidden to touch. The Robin Hood ballads grew out of it over several centuries, and the name became a general English surname and then an American given name in the nineteenth.
Meaningscholars disagree
shire wood; or bright wood
Old English scir is two words that fell together: one meaning a district or share, which gives the modern shire, and one meaning bright or clear, which gives sheer. Both would produce Sherwood. The district reading fits a forest held in common by a shire, and the bright reading fits a wood with open glades. Place-name scholars are divided. Wudu, the second element, is simply a wood and is not in doubt.
How the name formed
- scir wudu
- Sherwood
Pronouncing Sherwood
SHUR-wood
SHUR-wood, two syllables, stress at the front, both halves fully sounded. There is no reduction in the middle and no ambiguity in the spelling — a compound of two ordinary English words is about as clear as a name gets.
Nicknames for Sherwood
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
- 1891
- Most boys named
- 1940118 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #532reached in 1938
- Change vs 2022
- 0.0%8 in 2024, from 8
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.
Sherwoods among us
people named Sherwood 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
Sherwood 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
- Both halves are plain English and the name explains itself once looked at.
- Woody and Sher are both available and they sit in completely different registers.
- The forest behind it is one of the best-known places in English legend.
- The Robin Hood association is immediate and permanent for anyone who has heard the stories.
- The name is strongly associated with the oldest generations and has not returned.
- It goes to girls as well in this spelling, so on a form it settles less than it appears to.
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What they receive
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Sherwood
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Sherwoods are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,300 people named Sherwood are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Sherwood in 2025?
- Sherwood is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Sherwood with classmates?
- Sherwood will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More S names
The most-given names starting with S, all years combined.
Steven#271 · Stephen#383 · Samuel#18 · Scott#534 · Sean#489 · Shawn#681 · Stanley#863 · Steve#1609
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Sherwood? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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