Shirlene
Girls' nameMeaning not yet documented
Shirlene has been given to 4,856 babies in the U.S. since 1923. 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 1956, with 159 recorded.
Babies named Shirlene, 2010
1 in 739,000
Shirlene 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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.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 Shirlene?
Shirlene had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2010, the last year it was published.
- Among all babies, 2010
- 1 in 739,000
- 5 of 3,695,928 births
- Among girls only
- 1 in 355,000
- <0.01% of girls
- Rank, 2010
- Unranked
- Fewer than 5 uses
- Coin-flip room size
- 512,366 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Shirlene sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 2010 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 512,366 children born in 2010 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Shirlene. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Shirlenes were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Shirlene was born before 1953 — so the typical Shirlene is around 72 today.
- Biggest decade
- 1950s
- 27.9% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 2.9%
- Mostly a past generation
- Recorded since 1950
- 2,941
- People you could plausibly meet
1950s — 27.9% of all recorded uses (1,356).
Is Shirlene 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 1956 (159)
- Years since peak
- 69
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Volatile
- 43.9% average annual change
Spellings of Shirlene
Shirlene is not the most common spelling — Shirley is, with 80.3% against Shirlene's 0.57%.
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 Shirlene is used
Across 1910–2025, Shirlene was most concentrated in Utah — about 1 in 6,250 girls, against 1 in 57,991 across all states with data. It was least common in New Jersey (1 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. Shirlene has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.
Shirlene around the world
Where Shirlene 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 Australia1949–1971#724in 1971
Popularity data from Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.
Shirlene by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
Names similar to Shirlene
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Names with a curve like Shirlene
Not spelling — timing. These names rose, peaked and faded in the same years as Shirlene, so they read as being from the same moment even when they look nothing alike.
Sibling names for Shirlene
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.