Shellby
Girls' nameMeaning not yet documented
Shellby has been given to 496 babies in the U.S. since 1986. 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 1991, with 43 recorded.
Babies named Shellby, 2016
1 in 734,000
Shellby 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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.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 Shellby?
Shellby had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2016, the last year it was published.
- Among all babies, 2016
- 1 in 734,000
- 5 of 3,669,531 births
- Among girls only
- 1 in 354,000
- <0.01% of girls
- Rank, 2016
- Unranked
- Fewer than 5 uses
- Coin-flip room size
- 508,706 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Shellby sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 2016 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 508,706 children born in 2016 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Shellby. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Shellbys were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Shellby was born before 1997 — so the typical Shellby is around 28 today.
- Biggest decade
- 1990s
- 59.3% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 83.9%
- A modern name
- Recorded since 1950
- 496
- People you could plausibly meet
1990s — 59.3% of all recorded uses (294).
Is Shellby 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 1991 (43)
- Years since peak
- 34
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Volatile
- 36.8% average annual change
Spellings of Shellby
Shellby is not the most common spelling — Shelby is, with 44.1% against Shellby's 0.15%.
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 Shellby is used
Across 1910–2025, Shellby was most concentrated in California — about 1 in — girls, against 1 in 1,145,732 across all states with data. It was least common in Texas (1 in —).
Most concentrated
- 1California1 in —
- 2Michigan1 in —
- 3Texas1 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. Shellby has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.
Shellby around the world
Where Shellby 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.
- England & Wales1996–2008#4,524in 2008
- South Australia2001–2004#700in 2004
Popularity data from Office for National Statistics and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.
Shellby by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
Names similar to Shellby
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Shellby
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.