Shirley — #1450 US girls' name

What the Data Says About Shirley

The Social Security Administration has registered 686,246 babies named Shirley between 1880 and 2024, spanning 145 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a girl's name, Shirley currently holds the #1450 rank among girls for 2024. The name reached its historical peak in 1935, when 42,365 babies received it in a single year.

Decade-level aggregation shows that Shirley performed strongest in the 1930s, accumulating 229,378 births during that ten-year window. Across the 15 decades of recorded activity, Shirley shows a clear decline from its mid-century high. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in Pennsylvania, which accounts for 44,907 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by New York and Illinois. In total, SSA state-level files list Shirley in 51 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for Shirley 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 686,246 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.