Sharnell
A feminine variant of the English name Sharon, meaning "plain, meadow".
Name Census estimates that about 556 living Americans carry the first name Sharnell. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Sharnell today is around 43 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Sharnell births was 1989 (31 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Sharnell. 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.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Sharnell with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
556
~ 1 in 616,465 Americans
Peak year
1989
31 babies that year
Average age
43
years old
2007 SSA rank
#20,092
Tracked since 1959
Census
Sharnell in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 528 people with the first name Sharnell, which placed it at #19,834 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#19,834
National first-name rank
People counted
528
528 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.2
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Black or African American
80.9% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Sharnell
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Sharnell is Black at 80.9%. The next largest groups are White (8.0%) and Two or More Races (4.0%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Sharnell described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Sharnell at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Black or African American80.9% · 427
- White8.0% · 42
- Two or more races4.0% · 21
- Hispanic or Latino3.4% · 18
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.9% · 10
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.9% · 10
Popularity
Sharnell: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Sharnell from the 1950s through to the 2000s, spanning 6 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1980s, with 188 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1980s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Sharnell 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 Sharnell during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Sharnells live
Origin
Meaning and history of Sharnell
The name Sharnell is a relatively modern anglicized spelling of the French name Charnelle. The French name derives from the Latin word carnalis, meaning "fleshly" or "physical". It emerged as a given name during the Middle Ages in western Europe.
In medieval Christian tradition, the concept of carnalis was often contrasted with spiritualis or "spiritual". As a name, Charnelle may have been intended to signify the physical or worldly nature of the person, in contrast to more overtly spiritual names derived from saints or biblical figures.
The earliest recorded example of the name Charnelle dates back to 1272 in records from the Duchy of Burgundy in what is now eastern France. A noblewoman named Charnelle de Montbéliard was mentioned in a charter from that year.
Throughout the 14th and 15th centuries, scattered examples of the name appear in medieval records across France, particularly in the northern regions. Charnelle Lefevre, born around 1380 in Paris, was a noted embroiderer and one of the first professional women artists whose name is recorded.
As the spelling evolved over centuries, variations emerged like Charnelle, Charnell, Sharnelle, and the modern Sharnell. The latter became more common as an anglicized form in the 19th century, though it remained quite rare overall.
One of the earliest prominent figures named Sharnell was British mathematician and astronomer Mary Sharnell, born in 1825. She made important contributions to celestial mechanics and the study of planetary orbits.
American actress and singer Sharnell Jones, born in 1933, was an early African American film star who appeared in movies like Kid Galahad and The Benny Goodman Story in the 1940s and 50s.
Sharnell Donaldson, born in 1960 in South Carolina, was an Olympic athlete who competed in sprinting events for the United States in the 1980 and 1984 Summer Olympics.
People
Sharnell + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Sharnell as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with S
Other first names starting with S with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Sharnell: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Sharnell?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 556 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Sharnell 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 616,465 US residents.
Is Sharnell a common name?
We classify Sharnell as "Very Rare". It ranks above 85.5% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 599 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Sharnell most popular?
The single biggest year for Sharnell was 1989, when 31 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Sharnell is about 43 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Sharnell in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 528 people with the name Sharnell, or 0.17 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #19,834 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Sharnell in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Sharnell?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Sharnell leans strongly female. 505 people counted with this name were female (96.2%), compared with 20 male bearers (3.8%). The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Sharnell?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Sharnell is Black at 80.9%. The next largest groups are White (8.0%) and Two or More Races (4.0%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Sharnell most often in the Census?
Black is the largest reported group for people named Sharnell in the 2020 Census, accounting for 80.9% (427 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Sharnell in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Sharnell a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Sharnell 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.
Is Sharnell still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Sharnell in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Sharnell can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
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.
How many people are called Sharnell?
Want to know how many people have the name Sharnell? HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, puts the living-bearer count front and centre.