How Many People Are Named Shelley?
people named Shelley are alive in the United States today (estimate)
About 1 in 5,320 people in the US has this name
Based on 74,339 babies named Shelley in Social Security records from 1892 to 2025, and the share of each birth year still alive in 2025.
Popularity Rank
💎 Rare
Peak Year
2,845 births
Trend
Stable (last 10 years)
📖 Name Origin & Meaning
Meaning:
From a surname which was originally derived from a place name meaning "clearing on a bank" in Old English. Two famous bearers of the surname were Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), a romantic poet whose works include 'Adonais' and 'Ozymandias', and Mary Shelley (1797-1851), his wife, the author of the horror story 'Frankenstein'. As a feminine given name, it came into general use after the 1940s.
Source of the meaning, origin, pronunciation and related names: Behind the Name.
Same Sound, Other Spellings
These names are pronounced like Shelley in English. Counting Shelley and these spellings together, about 141,646 people alive in the US have the name.
⚧ Gender Distribution
Of the babies given the name Shelley, 98.7% were girls and 1.3% were boys. The share of girls among babies named Shelley rose from 17.2% in the 1910s to 100% in the 2010s.
👥 Age Distribution
The average person named Shelley alive today is about 58 years old, and 52% are between 30 and 59. Half of them were between 51 and 66 in 2025.
📈 Popularity Over Time
Shelley first appears in the records in 1892 and was given most often in 1964, to 2,845 babies. In 2025, 13 babies got the name.
Babies given the name each year, 1892 to 2025
🏆 Rank History
Shelley has never been one of the 100 most popular girls' names. Its best rank was #126, in 1972. In 2025 it ranked #8,278.
| Girls | |
|---|---|
| Rank in 2025 | #8,278 |
| Best rank | #126 (1972) |
| Years in the top 100 | None |
| Rank in its biggest decade | #155 in the 1960s |
📍 State-Wise Distribution
People named Shelley alive today, by the state where they were born (estimate; state records start in 1910).
More people named Shelley were born in California than in any other state: about 7,124 of those alive today. Compared with the national rate in the same years, Shelley was given 2.2 times as often in Montana, 2.2 times in Oregon and 2.1 times in Utah.
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