Shelley
given name · Latin script
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Shelley is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. Recorded meaning: Person from Shelley, from various English place names meaning ‘woodland clearing on shelving terrain’.
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 1.9K(inferred from the name graph)
- CACanada≈1 in 1.9K
- AUAustralia≈1 in 2.3K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Shelley itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- #667 (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 511 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.9K (inferred from the name graph)
75,244 named Shelly, 2020
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
New Zealand, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Shelly in US United States, IT Italy, EG Egypt and 1 more.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Person from Shelley, from various English place names meaning ‘woodland clearing on shelving terrain’.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Where in the world(measured from records)
Shelley counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | #277 | 75,244as Shelly | 1 in 4.4K | 74K | Shelly | 511 |
| GB United Kingdom | #308 | ≈22,000 est. | ≈1 in 3K | 4 | Shelley | 263 |
| CA Canada | #183 | ≈20,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.9K | 1 | Shelley | 259 |
| IT Italy | #561 | ≈12,000 est. | ≈1 in 5.1K | 1 | Shelly | 35 |
| EG Egypt | — | ≈12,000 est. | ≈1 in 8.9K | — | Shelly | 15 |
| AU Australia | #300 | ≈11,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.3K | 39 | Shelley | 205 |
| NZ New Zealand | #271 | ≈2,600 est. | ≈1 in 1.9K | 11 | Shelley | 142 |
| IE Ireland | #238 | ≈2,400 est. | ≈1 in 2.2K | — | Shelly | 57 |
| GY Guyana | — | 521as Shelly | 1 in 1.4K | 521 | — | 10 |
75,244 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; NISRA — Baby names Northern Ireland full list (1997–present); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; QLD BDM — Top 100 Baby Names Queensland (1960–present); ISTAT — Contanomi newborn per-name series (1999–2024, JSONP backend); DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present); Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025. Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Shelley is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, from Shelley, Essex or Suffolk or West Yorkshire; first attested Matilda de Selleg, Richard de Selueleg 1201 Pl (Suffolk)
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
In English, Originally a surname from place-names Shelley in Yorkshire, Essex, and Suffolk.
as a nameIrish first names
This name was originally a surname, coming from one or more of the places called Shelley in Yorkshire, Essex and Suffolk. It probably reached Ireland through the popularity of the film actress, Shelley Winters. She was, in fact, born Shirley —- sometimes in the United States the two names are used interchangeably.
as a nameIrish first names
In English, places, for example in Sussex, Suffolk, Essex, and W Yorks., all so called from OE scylf shelf + leak wood, clear¬ ing. The surname is now as common in the W Midlands as it is in E Anglia and London. Vars.: Shedden, Sheddan.
as a nameThe Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles
In English, Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), a Romantic poet.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Shelley Wintersb. 1920USAmerican actress (1920–2006)
- Shelley Bermanb. 1925USAmerican comedian, actor, writer, and teacher (1925–2017)
- Shelley Morrisonb. 1936USAmerican actress (1936–2019)
- Shelley Hackb. 1947USAmerican actress
- Shelley Longb. 1949USAmerican actress and comedian (born 1949)
- Shelley Duvallb. 1949USAmerican actress (1949–2024)
- Shelley Moore Capitob. 1953USUnited States Senator from West Virginia
- Shelley Jacksonb. 1963USAmerican writer and artist known for her cross-genre experiments
- Shelley Connb. 1976GBBritish actress
- Shelley Hennigb. 1987USAmerican actress and model (born 1987)
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 75 sources across 38 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 64K | #774 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 720 | #774 |
| GY Guyana | Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025 | 2025 | 98 | #496 |
| AU Australia | QLD BDM — Top 100 Baby Names Queensland (1960–present) | 1981 | 39 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 13 | — |
| NZ New Zealand | DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present) | 1995 | 11 | — |
| CA Canada | Statistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01) | 2017 | 5 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2001 | 5 | — |
| GB United Kingdom | NISRA — Baby names Northern Ireland full list (1997–present) | 2000 | 4 | #282 |
| GB United Kingdom | NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present) | 2005 | 3 | #687 |
| AU Australia | Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM) | 2000 | 3 | — |
| IT Italy | ISTAT — Contanomi newborn per-name series (1999–2024, JSONP backend) | 2022 | 1 | #22,015 |
Reference works 5
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Shelley mean, and where does it come from?
- Person from Shelley, from various English place names meaning ‘woodland clearing on shelving terrain’. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- Is Shelley a male or female name?
- Shelley is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- How common is the name Shelley?
- In the United States, the national register counted 75,244 people named Shelly in 2020, about 1 in 4.4 thousand residents.
- How common is Shelley compared with other names?
- In the United States, Shelley is the 277th most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
- What are other forms of the name Shelley?
- In the etymology graph, Shelly is a form of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Shelley have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 75 thousand people named Shelly, more than in any other country we hold.
What do you want to know about Shelley?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/shelleyThe same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), and bulk access is licensed separately.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Shelley” — the 277th most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.