Shela — girls' name

What the Data Says About Shela

The Social Security Administration has registered 1,398 babies named Shela between 1935 and 2007, spanning 73 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a girl's name, Shela currently falls outside the top 1,000 girls' names for 2007. The name reached its historical peak in 1950, when 44 babies received it in a single year.

Decade-level aggregation shows that Shela performed strongest in the 1960s, accumulating 337 births during that ten-year window. Across the 8 decades of recorded activity, Shela shows a clear decline from its mid-century high. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in Texas, which accounts for 44 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by California and Mississippi. In total, SSA state-level files list Shela in 8 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for Shela in our reference dataset. These figures derive from SSA's annual national and state-level name files, which include any name appearing at least five times in a given year or state-year; names below that threshold are suppressed for privacy and therefore excluded from the totals shown here. The 1,398 total represents a lower bound — actual usage may be higher in years or states where the count fell below the disclosure floor. This page is provided for informational and research purposes only and does not constitute personal, legal, or naming advice.