How popular is the name Shelly?

Shelly ranks 256th among girls' names in US records, with 171,773 births since 1882. Over the past decade it accounts for 429.

Is Shelly a unisex name?

No. Shelly is recorded almost entirely as a girls' name; births to the other gender are too few to register as a share.

1964, when 7,289 children were given the name. It has been in use for 143 years and is still recorded as of 2024.

Shelley, Shellie. All of these sound the same and are counted together in the totals on this page.

Girl name#256 of girl names

Pronounced SH EH1 L IY0 (ARPABET)

Shelly is a girls' name, and first appears in 1882. It has been given to 171,773 children — the 256th most common girls' name on record.

It is still recorded, but barely: 429 births across the past decade, against a peak of 7,289 in a single year. That peak was in 1964.

Two other spellings are counted in that total — Shelley and Shellie — because they are pronounced identically.

1964Girls: 7,289Boys: 82

These spellings sound identical to Shelly and are counted together with it, which is why the totals here are higher than a single-spelling count.

Phonetic detail

Stress digits mark unstressed (0), primary (1) and secondary (2) syllables.

Same first letter and syllable count, peaking around the same time.

Names from the same era with a matching rhythm but a different initial.

How popular is the name Shelly?: Shelly ranks 256th among girls' names in US records, with 171,773 births since 1882. Over the past decade it accounts for 429.
Is Shelly a unisex name?: No. Shelly is recorded almost entirely as a girls' name; births to the other gender are too few to register as a share.
When was Shelly most popular?: 1964, when 7,289 children were given the name. It has been in use for 143 years and is still recorded as of 2024.
How else is Shelly spelled?: Shelley, Shellie. All of these sound the same and are counted together in the totals on this page.