Sheldon
A masculine English name derived from an old English place meaning "deep valley".
Name Census estimates that about 25,424 living Americans carry the first name Sheldon. It is a predominantly male name (98.7% of registrations). The average person named Sheldon today is around 48 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Sheldon births was 1992 (624 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Sheldon. 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 Sheldon with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Sheldon is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 496 girls registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
25K
~ 1 in 13,482 Americans
Peak year
1992
624 babies that year
Average age
48
years old
2024 SSA rank
#1,961
Tracked since 1881
Census
Sheldon in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 25,586 people with the first name Sheldon, which placed it at #1,381 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
#1,381
National first-name rank
People counted
26K
25,586 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
8.5
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
58.4% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Sheldon
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Sheldon is White at 58.4%. The next largest groups are Black (28.4%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (3.9%). 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 Sheldon 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 Sheldon at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White58.4% · 14,947
- Black or African American28.4% · 7,258
- Asian and Pacific Islander3.9% · 1,006
- Two or more races3.9% · 989
- American Indian and Alaska Native2.8% · 716
- Hispanic or Latino2.6% · 670
Gender
Gender distribution for Sheldon
Sheldon leans heavily male at 98.7% of total registrations, but 496 girls have also been registered with the name over the years, giving it a small but present crossover presence.
Sheldon as a male name
- Ranked #1,961 in 2024
- 80 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1992 (608 births)
Sheldon as a female name
- Ranked #12,032 in 2002
- 8 female births in 2002
- Peak: 1994 (24 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Sheldon leans strongly male. 25,204 people counted with this name were male (98.5%), compared with 385 female bearers (1.5%).
Popularity
Sheldon: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Sheldon from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1990s, with 4,995 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1990s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Sheldon 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 Sheldon during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Sheldons live
The SSA's state-level files cover 49 states and territories. New York, California, Pennsylvania recorded the most babies named Sheldon, while New Hampshire, Delaware, Rhode Island recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 628 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Sheldon
The name Sheldon has its origins in Old English, derived from the elements "scylf" meaning "shelf" or "ledge" and "dun" meaning "hill" or "down". It was originally a topographic surname referring to someone who lived near a ledge or on a hill. The name can be traced back to the late Anglo-Saxon period in England, around the 11th century.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name is found in the Domesday Book of 1086, which mentions a landowner named Seldon in Buckinghamshire. The name also appears in various medieval records, such as the Pipe Rolls of Yorkshire in the 12th century.
In the late Middle Ages, the name began to be used as a given name, likely due to its association with places or estates. One notable bearer of the name was Sheldon Cradock (c. 1500-1572), an English landowner and Member of Parliament during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.
During the Renaissance period, the name gained some prominence in England. Sir Ralph Sheldon (c. 1537-1609) was a wealthy landowner and Member of Parliament who built the magnificent Weston House in Warwickshire. Another notable figure was Gilbert Sheldon (1598-1677), the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1663 to 1677, who played a significant role in the restoration of the Church of England after the English Civil War.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, the name continued to be used, though not as widely as some other English names. One notable bearer was Sheldon Jackson (1834-1909), an American Presbyterian missionary and advocate for Native American rights, who helped establish schools and churches in Alaska and other western territories.
Other historical figures with the name Sheldon include Sheldon Whitehouse (1805-1869), an American politician and lawyer who served as a U.S. Senator from Maine, and Sheldon Leavitt Cullom (1829-1914), a Republican politician who served as the 16th Governor of Illinois and later as a U.S. Senator.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Sheldon
People
Sheldon + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Sheldon 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
Sheldon: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Sheldon?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 25,424 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Sheldon 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 13,482 US residents.
Is Sheldon a common name?
We classify Sheldon as "Uncommon". It ranks above 98.7% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 37,122 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Sheldon most popular?
The single biggest year for Sheldon was 1992, when 624 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Sheldon is about 48 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Sheldon in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 25,586 people with the name Sheldon, or 8.47 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #1,381 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 Sheldon 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 Sheldon?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Sheldon leans strongly male. 25,204 people counted with this name were male (98.5%), compared with 385 female bearers (1.5%). 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 Sheldon?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Sheldon is White at 58.4%. The next largest groups are Black (28.4%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (3.9%). 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 Sheldon most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Sheldon in the 2020 Census, accounting for 58.4% (14,947 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 Sheldon in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Sheldon a male name?
Yes, 98.7% of people registered as Sheldon in the SSA data are male. 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 Sheldon still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Sheldon 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 Sheldon 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 Sheldon?
Find out how many people share the name Sheldon on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org — a quick modern estimate with the living-bearer count front and centre.