Shirl — unisex name

What the Data Says About Shirl

The Social Security Administration has registered 1,323 babies named Shirl between 1934 and 1983, spanning 50 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a girl's name, Shirl currently falls outside the top 1,000 girls' names for 1983. The name reached its historical peak in 1964, when 210 babies received it in a single year. Shirl is classified as unisex in SSA records: the opposite-sex variant accounts for 448 additional births since 1915.

Decade-level aggregation shows that Shirl performed strongest in the 1960s, accumulating 796 births during that ten-year window. Across the 6 decades of recorded activity, Shirl shows a clear decline from its mid-century high. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in Pennsylvania, which accounts for 82 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by Texas and Maryland. In total, SSA state-level files list Shirl in 19 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for Shirl 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 1,323 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.