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Girl · Old English
Shirley
Say it: SHUR-lee
Meaning
From an English surname and place name, Old English scīr 'shire' (or 'bright') + lēah 'clearing'.
Likelythe main view, with some doubt.
Charlotte Brontë's novel Shirley (1849) made it a girls' name, and Shirley Temple sent it into the US top five in the 1930s.
Its wave through time
A fashion of the 1930s
In the United States
- 695,247 babies given this name since 1880
- At its height in 1935, about 1 in 25 girls
- 135 babies in 2020
Through the ages
Used by
The family of the name
Other spellings: Shirlee
Famous bearers
- Shirley Temple, child actress and diplomat
- Shirley Chisholm, US congresswoman
Names worth a look
Where this comes from
- Well-known works of literature
- 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.