Shirely
Shirely was last recorded in 1969, when 6 babies were given it; 231 Americans have been recorded with it between 1926 and 1969 (Social Security Administration, published May 2026).
Girls and boys together; gaps are years SSA did not record (fewer than 5 births).
Births of Shirely by year: SSA national baby-name file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
How popular is Shirely?
Unranked in 2025
Its last girls’ rank on record is #7,326, in 1969; SSA lists a name only in years with 5 or more births.
13 babies in 1936, the peak
Shirely peaked in 1936, when 13 girls were given it, #2,371 among girls’ names. It was not recorded in 2025.
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1969 | 6 | #7,326 | 3.6 |
| 1967 | 9 | #4,923 | 5.5 |
| 1966 | 11 | #4,166 | 6.5 |
| 1965 | 5 | #7,365 | 2.8 |
| 1964 | 7 | #5,918 | 3.7 |
| 1963 | 5 | #7,485 | 2.6 |
| 1962 | 6 | #6,457 | 3.1 |
| 1960 | 9 | #4,730 | 4.5 |
| 1959 | 6 | #6,130 | 3.0 |
| 1958 | 9 | #4,459 | 4.5 |
Every recorded year (32)
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1957 | 6 | #5,987 | 2.9 |
| 1954 | 7 | #5,075 | 3.6 |
| 1953 | 6 | #5,584 | 3.2 |
| 1951 | 8 | #4,328 | 4.4 |
| 1949 | 7 | #4,605 | 4.1 |
| 1948 | 6 | #5,171 | 3.5 |
| 1947 | 9 | #3,977 | 5.1 |
| 1946 | 5 | #5,605 | 3.2 |
| 1945 | 7 | #3,975 | 5.4 |
| 1944 | 7 | #4,011 | 5.3 |
| 1943 | 5 | #5,281 | 3.6 |
| 1940 | 7 | #3,818 | 6.1 |
| 1939 | 8 | #3,382 | 7.3 |
| 1938 | 6 | #4,285 | 5.4 |
| 1937 | 7 | #3,750 | 6.6 |
| 1936 | 13 | #2,371 | 12.5 |
| 1935 | 10 | #2,901 | 9.5 |
| 1934 | 5 | #4,873 | 4.8 |
| 1931 | 9 | #3,185 | 8.5 |
| 1928 | 6 | #4,648 | 5.2 |
| 1927 | 6 | #4,730 | 5.0 |
| 1926 | 8 | #3,839 | 6.7 |
Ranks and shares: girls’ names in each year’s SSA file; share of all girls SSA recorded that year.
Is Shirely a boy’s or a girl’s name?
Shirely has been recorded only for girls: SSA lists no boys with the name in 32 years of records (it lists a name only in years with 5 or more babies of a sex).
Girls and boys named Shirely: the SSA national file counts each sex separately.
How many people are named Shirely, and how old are they?
An estimated 131 Americans named Shirely and born in the U.S. are alive in 2026 (57% of everyone recorded); the median is 69 years old and half are between 62 and 79. An estimate from SSA’s births and life tables, not a count.
The 2020 Census counted 768 people named Shirely (768 women and girls, 0 men and boys). SSA’s births carried forward to Census day, April 1, 2020, predict 157 born in the U.S. The Census count is 4.9 times that prediction. Possible reasons: the Census counts people born abroad, whom SSA’s files leave out, and it records the name people give, which SSA may have recorded under another spelling or as part of a compound name.
Living estimate: SSA births carried forward with the survival rates in SSA’s cohort life tables (2024 Trustees Report) for each birth year and sex. How the estimate is made. Count: Census Bureau, first names in the 2020 Census (released April 14, 2026; names reported 100 or more times, with the Bureau’s disclosure-avoidance adjustment).
Names spelled alike
Of these 6 names spelled alike, given to 698,203 babies since 1880, Shirely is the fourth most given (<1% of them). In 2025 none of their 133 babies recorded by SSA was a Shirely (SSA lists a name only with 5 or more babies of one sex).
Spelled alike: names in the SSA national file with the same pattern of letters and sounds and at most two letters apart, and Wiktionary’s listed forms; births since 1880 and in 2025, and each name’s peak year, from the SSA national file, published May 8, 2026. Some are separate names, not spellings of one.
Names that rose and fell in the same decades as Shirely
Names whose births rose and fell across the same decades, measured on each decade’s share of births.
Similar histories: each decade’s share of births, from the SSA national file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
More about Shirely and names like it
- Compare Shirely and ShirleyBirths, ranks, peak and the living estimate side by side.
- The most given names of the 1930sShirely peaked in 1936.
- The top names of 1936The year the most babies were named Shirely.
- The names of the Baby BoomersMost people named Shirely alive today were born 1946-1964.
- Names starting with SMost given first.