Name Awesome

Sheilah

Girls' name

Meaning and linguistic origin unconfirmed

Sheilah has been given to 2,285 babies in the U.S. since 1924. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 1955, with 199 recorded.

Babies named Sheilah, 2009

1 in 764,000

Sheilah over time, 1880–2025

Girls
05010015020018801900192019401960198020002020

Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Sheilah: meaning, origin, and history

Meaning and linguistic origin unconfirmed

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Sheilah means

Sheilah is a given name.

The naming story behind Sheilah

Wikidata records Sheilah as a female given name. The entity identifier is Q66264129, and the classification was checked on 2026-10-20. The spelling matches a source label or alias exactly, without removing accents or linking it to a name merely because the letters look similar.

A database classification is different from an etymological explanation, so those questions remain open in the short meaning.

A modern root explanation needs an additional naming or linguistic reference.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 2,285 girls were recorded with the name Sheilah between 1924 and 2009. Its highest annual count was 199 in 1955; its best national rank was #663 in 1955.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning, origin, and language notes draw on the references below.

American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling. Counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted.

How common is Sheilah?

Sheilah had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2009, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2009
1 in 764,000
5 of 3,820,315 births
Among girls only
1 in 367,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2009
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
529,609 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Sheilah sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Olivia (13,544)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 2009 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 529,609 children born in 2009 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Sheilah. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Sheilahs were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Sheilah was born before 1956 — so the typical Sheilah is around 69 today.

Median birth year
1956
About 69 years old
Biggest decade
1950s
38.7% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
5.9%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
1,766
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1950s — 38.7% of all recorded uses (884).

Is Sheilah rising or falling?

Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.

Rank vs 1 year ago
—
Not ranked then
Rank vs 5 years ago
New entry
Not ranked then
Rank vs 10 years ago
—
Not ranked then
Births vs 10 years ago
—
Not published both years
Share of its own peak
0%
Peak was 1955 (199)
Years since peak
70
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Shifting
19.7% average annual change
Best rank ever
#663
1955

Spellings of Sheilah

Sheilah is not the most common spelling — Sheila is, with 80.5% against Sheilah's 0.77%.

Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.

Where Sheilah is used

Across 1910–2025, Sheilah was most concentrated in Alabama — about 1 in 100,000 girls, against 1 in 201,950 across all states with data. It was least common in Washington (1 in —).

01 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Alabama1 in 100,000
  2. 2Illinois1 in 100,000
  3. 3Michigan1 in 100,000
  4. 4Missouri1 in 100,000
  5. 5North Carolina1 in 100,000
  6. 6New York1 in 100,000
  7. 7Ohio1 in 100,000
  8. 8California1 in —

Shading is the share of that state's recorded girls given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings. Sheilah has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Sheilah around the world

Where Sheilah ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.

  • South Australia
    1949–1949
    #387
    in 1949

Popularity data from Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Notable people named Sheilah

People whose public names include Sheilah, backed by Wikidata given-name records and ordered by linked Wikimedia pages. The name may be a middle name.

People data from Wikidata (CC0). Fame is measured, not judged — the order reflects how widely each person is documented, not the U.S. birth records popularity this page is otherwise about.

Sheilah by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#663
1955
Peak year
1955
199 that year
First recorded
1924
Last recorded
2009
All-time count
2,285
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Sheilah

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

ShelahShealynSheelahShekinahShelbieSherlinShelseaSherlynSheylaSherikaJamilahShenikaSherronSherlyDelylahSherrilShereenShelbiShemekaSheryllSherreeShenitaSheridanAkeelah

Names with a curve like Sheilah

Not spelling — timing. These names rose, peaked and faded in the same years as Sheilah, so they read as being from the same moment even when they look nothing alike.

JoetteDremaGwendaMerrieCheryllPameliaJannBrindaPamellaGlindaCatheyKaran

Sibling names for Sheilah

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Sheilah

Top names of 1955, Sheilah's peak yearThe 1950s in fullOther names that peaked in 1955Girls' names starting with S