Baby name
FADING
🇬🇧 🇺🇸 🇦🇺 Shelley
/SHEL · ee/
Meaning
“Unknown”
English surname turned feminine given name, from Old English scealf-leah (shelf meadow); also associated with the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley; became a distinctly mid-century American and British feminine name.
Nicknames
shell
Vibe
gentle
How it ages.
Peaked in the 1960s-70s in the US and UK; feels firmly of that era.
The cultural moment.
Top 100 in the US and UK from the 1950s through the 1970s; declining steadily since the 1980s.