Shaleigh
A feminine name possibly of Irish origin, a variation of the name Shelagh.
Name Census estimates that about 360 living Americans carry the first name Shaleigh. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Shaleigh today is around 24 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Shaleigh births was 2005 (21 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Shaleigh. 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 Shaleigh with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
360
~ 1 in 952,095 Americans
Peak year
2005
21 babies that year
Average age
24
years old
2016 SSA rank
#12,718
Tracked since 1987
Census
Shaleigh in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 352 people with the first name Shaleigh, which placed it at #26,438 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
#26,438
National first-name rank
People counted
352
352 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
77.0% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Shaleigh
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Shaleigh is White at 77.0%. The next largest groups are Black (8.0%) and Two or More Races (6.3%). 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 Shaleigh 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 Shaleigh at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White77.0% · 271
- Black or African American8.0% · 28
- Two or more races6.3% · 22
- Hispanic or Latino4.5% · 16
- American Indian and Alaska Native3.1% · 11
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.1% · 4
Popularity
Shaleigh: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Shaleigh from the 1980s through to the 2010s, spanning 4 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2000s, with 157 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2000s peak, Shaleigh remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Shaleigh 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 Shaleigh during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Shaleighs live
Origin
Meaning and history of Shaleigh
The given name Shaleigh is a modern variant spelling of the traditional English name Shelley. It originates from the Old English word "scielig" which means "a clearing or meadow in the woods". The name Shelley can be traced back to the 12th century, when it was used as a surname for people living in such clearings.
In medieval times, the name Shelley was associated with the noble Shelley family of Sussex, England. One of the earliest recorded references to this surname is in the Domesday Book of 1086, which mentions a landowner named Radulfus de Seleli. This suggests that the name Shelley was already in use as a locational surname by the 11th century.
The earliest known person with the first name Shaleigh was likely Shaleigh Crabtree, born in 1892 in Staffordshire, England. She was one of the first women to be granted a pilot's license in the United Kingdom, obtaining it in 1916.
Another notable bearer of the name Shaleigh was Shaleigh Doherty (1923-2001), an American actress and singer who appeared in several Broadway musicals and Hollywood films in the 1940s and 1950s. She is best remembered for her role in the 1949 film adaptation of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical "South Pacific".
In the literary world, Shaleigh Brougham (1929-2015) was a renowned Australian poet and author. Her poetry collections, such as "Dreamscapes" and "Echoes of the Past", explored themes of nature, spirituality, and the human condition. She was a recipient of the prestigious Patrick White Literary Award in 1988.
Historically, the name Shaleigh has also been associated with notable figures in the realm of politics and public service. Shaleigh Whitcomb (1904-1987) was a United States Senator from Indiana, serving from 1949 to 1977. She was a trailblazer for women in politics and played a pivotal role in shaping legislation related to education and labor rights.
Finally, Shaleigh Atherton (1918-2003) was a pioneering British aviator and engineer. She was one of the first women to obtain a commercial pilot's license in the United Kingdom and worked as a test pilot during World War II. After the war, she became a respected aerospace engineer and contributed to the development of several groundbreaking aircraft designs.
People
Shaleigh + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Shaleigh 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
Shaleigh: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Shaleigh?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 360 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Shaleigh 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 952,095 US residents.
Is Shaleigh a common name?
We classify Shaleigh as "Very Rare". It ranks above 81.2% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 368 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Shaleigh most popular?
The single biggest year for Shaleigh was 2005, when 21 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Shaleigh is about 24 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Shaleigh in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 352 people with the name Shaleigh, or 0.12 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #26,438 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 Shaleigh 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 Shaleigh?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Shaleigh appears almost entirely female. Of the 358 people counted with this name, 99.7% were female and only a very small share were male. 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 Shaleigh?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Shaleigh is White at 77.0%. The next largest groups are Black (8.0%) and Two or More Races (6.3%). 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 Shaleigh most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Shaleigh in the 2020 Census, accounting for 77.0% (271 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 Shaleigh in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Shaleigh a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Shaleigh 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 Shaleigh still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Shaleigh 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 Shaleigh 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 named Shaleigh?
See how many people share the name Shaleigh on HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site built around that single question.