Shelva — girls' name

What the Data Says About Shelva

The Social Security Administration has registered 1,117 babies named Shelva between 1936 and 1980, spanning 45 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a girl's name, Shelva currently falls outside the top 1,000 girls' names for 1980. The name reached its historical peak in 1937, when 194 babies received it in a single year.

Decade-level aggregation shows that Shelva performed strongest in the 1930s, accumulating 546 births during that ten-year window. Across the 6 decades of recorded activity, Shelva shows a clear decline from its mid-century high. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in West Virginia, which accounts for 158 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by Pennsylvania and Virginia. In total, SSA state-level files list Shelva in 14 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for Shelva 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 1,117 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.