Shirley
Feminine · “bright clearing”
Shirley is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 686,383 girls against 9,551 boys since 1880. See Shirley as a boy name
Shirley is a bright clearing in Old English, and it became a woman's name by accident. A novelist gave it to a heroine in 1849 precisely because it was a man's name, and readers took it the other way.
How old is the name Shirley?
Shirley was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Shirley alive today was born around 1940, making them about 85 years old. About 328,000 people named Shirley are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Shirley most popular?
Shirley peaked in 1935, reaching #2 nationally. Today it ranks #1581, 1,579 places below that high. See the whole 1935 chart.
Where it comes from
From scir + leah to Shirley
The story of Shirley
Shirley is a place name in several English counties, then a surname, then a boy's name — which is exactly why Charlotte Brontë chose it for her 1849 novel: her heroine's parents had wanted a son and gave her the name anyway. Readers took it for daughters instead. It rose steadily in America and then explosively in the 1930s, when a child film star made it briefly the second most-given girls' name in the country.
Meaning
bright clearing
From the Old English scir, 'bright', and leah, 'clearing' or 'woodland glade'. The leah element is the commonest in English place names; scir gives both 'sheer' and 'shire', so the first element is read either as bright or as belonging to the county.
How the name formed
- scir + leah
- Shirley
Related forms: Shirlee · Shirly
Pronouncing Shirley
SHUR-lee
Two syllables, stress on the first. No variation between English accents.
Nicknames for Shirley
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
- 1934 — Shirley Temple becomes a child megastar
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1880
- Most girls named
- 193726,823 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2reached in 1935
- Change vs 2022
- −0.7%133 in 2025, from 134
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.
Shirley in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Shirlee in English — spelling variant
- Shirly in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, New York, Texas.
Shirleys among us
people named Shirley are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 12,085 born in 2025 was named Shirley
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 Dorothy test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Shirley's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Dorothy climbed just as high around 1920, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Dorothy's path sketches the road Shirley is walking now.
Shirley 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 Shirley is headed
Shirley 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.
Shirley beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Shirley in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The meaning is concrete and easy to picture, and the place-name origin is well documented.
- It carries one of the clearest documented cases of a novel changing a name's sex.
- Two clean syllables with no pronunciation risk at all.
- The 1930s film association is very strong for older generations and shaped the name's whole trajectory.
- It is sharply period-coded to the middle of the twentieth century.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Shirley
Feminine · #1581 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Shirleys are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 328,000 people named Shirley are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Shirley in 2025?
- Shirley ranks #1581 among US girl names in 2025, with 133 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Shirley?
- About 1 in every 12,085 US girls born in 2025 was named Shirley — 133 in all.
- Will my child share the name Shirley with classmates?
- Shirley will almost certainly be the only one in school.
- What explains the spikes and dips on Shirley's chart?
- Shirley climbed after 1934 — Shirley Temple becomes a child megastar.
Ranked beside Shirley
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Aimee#1581 · Aylany#1581 · Elyanna#1581 · Maven#1581 · Naia#1581 · Lidia#1587 · Koa#1587 · Kinsleigh#1587
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Shirley? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Shirley and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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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
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