Shely
Girls' nameMeaning not yet documented
Shely has been given to 31 babies in the U.S. since 1970. 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 1972, with 6 recorded.
Babies named Shely, 2002
1 in 747,000
Shely 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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.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 Shely?
Shely had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2002, the last year it was published.
- Among all babies, 2002
- 1 in 747,000
- 5 of 3,737,275 births
- Among girls only
- 1 in 359,000
- <0.01% of girls
- Rank, 2002
- Unranked
- Fewer than 5 uses
- Coin-flip room size
- 518,097 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Shely sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 2002 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 518,097 children born in 2002 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Shely. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Shelys were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Shely was born before 1972 — so the typical Shely is around 53 today.
- Biggest decade
- 1970s
- 67.7% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 32.3%
- Spread across generations
- Recorded since 1950
- 31
- People you could plausibly meet
1970s — 67.7% of all recorded uses (21).
Is Shely 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 1972 (6)
- Years since peak
- 53
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Steady
- 10.0% average annual change
Spellings of Shely
Shely is not the most common spelling — Sheila is, with 17.7% against Shely's <0.01%.
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.
Shely around the world
Where Shely 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.
- France2001–2022#5,022in 2022
Popularity data from Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0.
Shely by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
Names similar to Shely
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Shely
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.