Sherman
Sherman is a boy's name that peaked in 1950, when it was the 259th most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 5,045th. About 18,000 Shermans are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 60.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Sherman boys named Sherman
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 39,393
- Estimated living today
- 18,000
- Median age today
- 60
- Peak year
- 1950
- Best rank
- 259th
- Rank in 2025
- 5,045th
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 203 / 39,190
How old the living Shermans are
born that year still alive today
Of the 39,393 babies given the name since 1880, about 18,000 are alive — 47 in every hundred. Roughly 680 of them are children and 7,600 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1965 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 a surname
From Middle English schereman, scherman; equivalent.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Shermans
- Sherman Alexie (born 1966)American author and filmmaker
- Sherman Hemsley (1938–2012)American actor
- Sherman Howard (born 1949)American actor
- Sherman Minton (1890–1965)US Supreme Court justice from 1949 to 1956
- Theodore Sherman Palmer (1868–1955)U.S. zoologist
- Sherman Adams (1899–1986)67th governor of New Hampshire
People named Sherman with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Sherman is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Sherman is most concentrated in West Virginia (2.9×), Arkansas (2.8×), Louisiana (2.8×), Kentucky (2.8×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1950
The most popular boys’ names the year Sherman peaked:
Related names
Sherman 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.