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Shelby vs Sheridan

American parents have registered 165,279 Shelbys since 1880, against 8,372 Sheridans. Shelby is still ahead, with 485 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Shelby against Sheridan, 1880 to 2025 0 3k 6k 9k 12k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Shelby Sheridan

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Of the 146 years in which either name was published, Shelby for 145 years and Sheridan for 1 year. The lead changed hands 2 times.

Side by side

  Shelby Sheridan
Total US births 165,2798,372
Most in one year 10,744328
Babies in 2025 48532
Estimated living today 150,0006,800
Median age today 3030
Peak year 19912001
Best rank 33rd girls778th girls
Rank in 2025 649th5,238th
First recorded 18801891
Girls / boys 148,830 / 16,4495,604 / 2,768

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Where each one is strongest

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Shelby Sheridan
England and Wales 3,294251
France 85585
Scotland 37123

Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Shelby and Sheridan.