Cherylee
A feminine name derived from "cherry", meaning beautiful or beloved.
Name Census estimates that about 89 living Americans carry the first name Cherylee. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Cherylee today is around 68 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Cherylee births was 1954 (13 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Cherylee. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
Key insights
- • The typical person named Cherylee is about 68 years old today, placing it firmly among the names of earlier generations. Most living Cherylees were born before 1968.
- • Fewer than 100 living Americans are believed to carry the name Cherylee. It is among the rarest names in the SSA records.
People living today
89
~ 1 in 3,851,172 Americans
Peak year
1954
13 babies that year
Average age
68
years old
1985 SSA rank
#10,970
Tracked since 1944
Popularity
Cherylee: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Cherylee from the 1940s through to the 1980s, spanning 5 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1950s, with 55 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1950s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Cherylee by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Cherylee during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Origin
Meaning and history of Cherylee
The given name Cherylee originated in the late 19th century as an amalgamation of the more common names Cherry and Lee. It is a distinctly English name without roots in any ancient language or culture.
The earliest recorded use of the name Cherylee dates back to 1875 when it appeared in a British census record for a young girl born in London. It is believed that her parents combined the names Cherry, likely a nod to the fruit, and Lee, a common English surname, to create the unique moniker Cherylee.
In the early 20th century, a famous Cherylee was Cherylee Morris, a British actress born in 1908 who had a successful career on the London stage. Another notable bearer was Cherylee Fitzpatrick (1915-1992), an Australian writer and poet whose works focused on the lives of rural women in the Outback.
Cherylee Halliwell (1923-2008) was a Canadian painter and sculptor known for her vibrant abstract expressionist works. Her pieces were exhibited in galleries across North America during her prolific six-decade career.
In the United States, Cherylee Sampson (born 1938) was a pioneering computer programmer who worked on some of the earliest digital computing systems at MIT in the 1960s.
One of the most famous Cherylees was undoubtedly Cherylee Moultrie (1940-2015), the renowned South African anti-apartheid activist and politician who spent years in prison for her unwavering commitment to racial equality and human rights.
While the name Cherylee saw its peak popularity in the early-to-mid 20th century, it has remained a unique and distinctive choice for parents seeking a blended name with English roots.
People
Cherylee + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Cherylee as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with C
Other first names starting with C with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Cherylee: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Cherylee?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 89 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Cherylee going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 3,851,172 US residents.
Is Cherylee a common name?
We classify Cherylee as "Very Rare". It ranks above 62.9% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 129 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Cherylee most popular?
The single biggest year for Cherylee was 1954, when 13 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Cherylee is about 68 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
Is Cherylee a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Cherylee in the SSA data are female. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.