Shelba
Girls' nameMeaning not yet documented
Shelba has been given to 2,141 babies in the U.S. since 1935. 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 1937, with 344 recorded.
Babies named Shelba, 1982
1 in 501,000
Shelba over time, 1880–2025
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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.
How common is Shelba?
Shelba had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1982, the last year it was published.
- Among all babies, 1982
- 1 in 501,000
- 7 of 3,507,638 births
- Among girls only
- 1 in 242,000
- <0.01% of girls
- Rank, 1982
- Unranked
- Fewer than 5 uses
- Coin-flip room size
- 347,331 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Shelba sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 1982 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 347,331 children born in 1982 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Shelba. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Shelbas were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Shelba was born before 1940 — so the typical Shelba is around 85 today.
- Biggest decade
- 1930s
- 45.4% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 12.2%
- Spread across generations
- Recorded since 1950
- 487
- People you could plausibly meet
1930s — 45.4% of all recorded uses (970).
Is Shelba 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 1937 (344)
- Years since peak
- 88
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Volatile
- 27.8% average annual change
Spellings of Shelba
Shelba is not the most common spelling — Sheila is, with 21.3% against Shelba's 0.19%.
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 Shelba is used
Across 1910–2025, Shelba was most concentrated in West Virginia — about 1 in 12,500 girls, against 1 in 60,056 across all states with data. It was least common in Texas (1 in —).
Most concentrated
- 1West Virginia1 in 12,500
- 2Arkansas1 in 14,286
- 3North Carolina1 in 20,000
- 4Alabama1 in 25,000
- 5Georgia1 in 25,000
- 6Tennessee1 in 33,333
- 7Kentucky1 in 50,000
- 8Missouri1 in 50,000
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. Shelba has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.
Shelba by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
As a girl's name
Names similar to Shelba
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Names with a curve like Shelba
Not spelling — timing. These names rose, peaked and faded in the same years as Shelba, so they read as being from the same moment even when they look nothing alike.
Sibling names for Shelba
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.