Shelly vs Sheridan
American parents have registered 86,610 Shellys since 1880, against 8,372 Sheridans. But in 2025 it was Sheridan that was commoner, 32 babies to 21.
Babies given each name, 1880–2025
Shelly 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 138 years in which either name was published, Shelly for 91 years and Sheridan for 47 years. The lead changed hands 33 times.
- 1882–1902 Shelly ahead, apart from one short spell
- 1910–1922 Sheridan ahead, apart from one short spell
- 1930–1937 Shelly ahead
- 1940–1942 Sheridan ahead
- 1947–1995 Shelly ahead
- 1996–2011 Sheridan ahead
- 2012–2021 Shelly ahead, apart from one short spell
24 shorter spells of a year or two are folded into the spans above rather than listed separately.
Side by side
| Shelly | Sheridan | |
|---|---|---|
| Total US births | 86,610 | 8,372 |
| Most in one year | 4,127 | 328 |
| Babies in 2025 | 21 | 32 |
| Estimated living today | 77,000 | 6,800 |
| Median age today | 56 | 30 |
| Peak year | 1964 | 2001 |
| Best rank | 101st girls | 778th girls |
| Rank in 2025 | 5,722nd | 5,238th |
| First recorded | 1882 | 1891 |
| Girls / boys | 84,420 / 2,190 | 5,604 / 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.
Which name is older
Half of the Shellys alive today are over 56; half the Sheridans are over 30. That is 26 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.
Where each one is strongest
- Shelly North Dakota (2.7×), Oklahoma (2.4×), Montana (2.3×)
- Sheridan Oklahoma (3.4×), Arizona (3.0×), Texas (2.5×)
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 | Shelly | Sheridan |
|---|---|---|
| France | 770 | 85 |
| England and Wales | 185 | 251 |
| Scotland | 122 | 23 |
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: Shelly and Sheridan.