The history of your name

The SHELLEY surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
Total Rank Frequency % Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot) 13,995 2373 0.005 52
United States (1880 census) 2,508 2423 0.005 50
Change since 1880 +11487 +50 0 +2
Other Countries
Australia 1,033 1603 0.006 63
United Kingdom 3,942 1582 0.009 86
Top States for SHELLEY by Total
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
South Carolina 1,038 649 0.026 259
California 965 3263 0.003 28
Texas 881 2677 0.004 42
Florida 857 2462 0.005 54
Pennsylvania 689 2257 0.006 56
Top States for SHELLEY by Frequency
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
South Carolina 1,038 649 0.026 259
Utah 413 736 0.018 185
Alabama 556 1345 0.013 125
Alaska 63 1305 0.010 100
Kentucky 359 1634 0.009 89

Notes

'A figure of zero indicates that we don't have data for this name (usually because it's quite uncommon and our stats don't go down that far). It doesn't mean that there's no-one with that name at all!

For less common surnames, the figures get progressively less reliable the fewer holders of that name there are. This data is aggregated from several public lists, and some stats are interpolated from known values. The margin of error is well over 100% at the rarest end of the table!

For less common surnames, the frequency and "per million" values may be 0 even though there are people with that name. That's because they represent less than one in a million of the population, which ends up as 0 after rounding.

It's possible for a surname to gain in rank and/or total while being less common per million people (or vice versa) as there are now more surnames in the USA as a result of immigration. In mathematical terms, the tail has got longer, with a far larger number of less common surnames.

Figures for top states show firstly the states where most people called SHELLEY live. This obviously tends to be biased towards the most populous states. The second set of figures show where people called SHELLEY represent the biggest proportion of the population. So, in this case, there are more people called SHELLEY in South Carolina than any other state, but you are more likely to find a SHELLEY by picking someone at random in South Carolina than anywhere else.

Classification and Origin of SHELLEY

Region of origin: British Isles

Country of origin: England

Language of origin: English

Ethnic origin: English

Religious origin: Christian

Name derivation: Location or Geographical Feature

Data for religion and/or language relates to the culture in which the SHELLEY surname originated. It does not necessarily have any correlation with the language spoken, or religion practised, by the majority of current American citizens with that name.

Data for ethnic origin relates to the region and country in which the SHELLEY surname originated. It does not necessarily have any correlation with the ethnicity of the majority of current American citizens with that name.

Ethnic distribution of SHELLEY in the USA

Classification Total Percent
White (Hispanic) 181 1.29
Mixed Race 172 1.23
Native American/Alaskan 84 0.6
Asian/Pacific 83 0.59
White (Caucasian) 12,218 87.3
Black/African American 1,260 9

Ethnic distribution data shows the number and percentage of people with the SHELLEY surname who reported their ethnic background as being in these broad categories in the most recent national census.

Meaning of SHELLEY in historical publications

(origin: Local) Derived from Shelley, in Essex, Suffolk, and Yorkshire, England, from Schell, a spring, and ley, a field.

Arthur, William (1857) An Etymological Dictionary of Family and Christian Names. New York: Sheldon, Blakeman. Public Domain.


SHELLEY. Genealogists assert that the Shelleys " came out of France with AVilliam the Conqueror." Seulle, Shevele, or Sheuile, is found in the lists called the Roll of Battel Abbey. Horsfield's Lewes, ii. ITG. But independently of the fact that there are several places in England called Shelley, (in Suffolk, Essex, Yorkshire, &c.) there is no authenticated, or even imaginary, pedigree which ascends beyond the XIV. century. There was formerly near Horsham, in Sussex, (the great habitat oiWn?, family) a park called Shelley, from which they doubtless assumed their name.

Lower, Mark A (1860) Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom. London: J.R. Smith. Public Domain.


Similar names to SHELLEY

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as SHELLEY.

This does not necessarily imply a direct relationship between the names, but may indicate names that could be mistaken for this one when written down or misheard.

Matches are generated automatically by a combination of Soundex, Metaphone and Levenshtein matching.

Potential typos for SHELLEY

The following words are slight variants of SHELLEY that are likely to be possible typos or misspellings in written material.