Sheila
The girl's name Sheila has been in the national records since 1907, with 239,422 births to its name. In 2025 it ranked 2,645th. About 190,000 Sheilas are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 63.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Sheila boys named Sheila
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 239,422
- Estimated living today
- 190,000
- Median age today
- 63
- Peak year
- 1962
- Best rank
- 52nd
- Rank in 2025
- 2,645th
- First recorded
- 1907
- Girls / boys
- 238,774 / 648
How old the living Sheilas are
born that year still alive today
Of the 239,422 babies given the name since 1907, about 190,000 are alive — 79 in every hundred. Roughly 2,400 of them are children and 88,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1962 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
Origin Irish
Anglicized spelling of Irish Síle, equivalent to Cecilia.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Sheilas
- Sheila Dikshit (1938–2019)Indian politician and former Chief Minister of Delhi
- Sheila Jackson Lee (1950–2024)American lawyer and politician
- Sheila Jordan (1928–2025)American jazz singer
- Sheila (born 1945)French recording artist and yé-yé singer
- Sheila E. (born 1957)American singer and percussionist
- Sheila Young (born 1950)American speed skater and racing cyclist
- Sheila Hancock (born 1933)British actress
- Sheila McCarthy (born 1956)Canadian actress
People named Sheila with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Sheila is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Sheila is most concentrated in the District of Columbia (2.2×), Vermont (1.6×), North Dakota (1.6×), Massachusetts (1.5×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1962
The most popular girls’ names the year Sheila peaked:
Sheila elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spain girls | Sheila | 3,921 | 71st |
| Ireland girls | Sheila | 2,922 | 37th |
| France girls | Sheila +1 spelling | 765 | 635th |
| Scotland girls | Sheila | 292 | 144th |
| Italy girls | Sheila | 287 | — |
| Switzerland girls | Sheila | 249 | 306th |
| England and Wales girls | Sheila | 219 | 1,502nd |
| Norway girls | Sheila | 141 | 340th |
| Belgium girls | Sheila | 38 | 784th |
| Northern Ireland girls | Sheila | 3 | 444th |
| Poland girls | Sheila | 2 birth registrations | 601st |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Sheila: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German girls | Switzerland | Sheila | 203 | 0.016% | 229th |
| French girls | Switzerland | Sheila | 23 | 0.005% | 463rd |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Sheila | 23 | 0.035% | 69th |
Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.
By canton, Sheila is most concentrated in Bern, where 0.02% of children were given it – 38 of them.
Sheila: rank by region
In 2002, Sheila was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Sheila | 699 | 5 |
In 2008, Sheila was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Spain.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Melilla | Sheila | 4 | 11 |
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Spain after 10 names – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Sheila among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland girls | Sheila | 53 | 69 |
A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Where Sheila lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 20,114 women called Sheila were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Women: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Melilla | Sheila | 90 | 2.079 | 102 |
| Palencia | Sheila | 125 | 1.564 | 134 |
| Castellón/Castelló | Sheila | 454 | 1.439 | 125 |
| Asturias | Sheila | 732 | 1.380 | 135 |
| Ávila | Sheila | 110 | 1.376 | 151 |
| Valladolid | Sheila | 362 | 1.335 | 146 |
Listed in 52 of Spain's 52 provinces. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Sheila against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.