Girl · Old English
Shelley
Say it: SHEL-ee
Meaning
From an English surname and place name, Old English scylf 'shelf, ledge' + leah 'clearing'.
Likelythe main view, with some doubt.
Long a boys' name from the surname, it became a girls' name in the 1940s, after Shelley Winters.
Its wave through time
A fashion of the 1970s
In the United States
- 74,289 babies given this name since 1892
- At its height in 1972, about 1 in 638 girls
- 15 babies in 2020
Through the ages
Used by
The family of the name
Other spellings: Shelly, Shellie
Famous bearers
- Shelley Winters, American actress
- Shelley Long, American actress
Names worth a look
Where this comes from
- United States Social Security birth records, 1880 to today source
- United States Social Security birth records, 1880 to today source
Meanings and histories are compiled from the study of names and their languages and checked by a second review.
Meanings and histories are drawn from the study of names and their languages, each with a confidence rating; popularity figures come from official birth records. Name histories are a living field: if you know of a correction, we would be glad to hear it.