Shirley Elmer

(female), formerly (male) Transferred use of the surname, in origin a local name from any of the various places (in the West Midlands, Derbyshire, Hampshire, and Surrey) named in Old English from scīr ‘county, shire’ or scīr ‘bright’ + lēah ‘wood, clearing’. It was given by Charlotte Brontë to the heroine of her novel Shirley (1849). According to the novel, her parents had selected the name in prospect of a male child and used it regardless. Shirley had earlier been used as a boy's name (Charlotte Brontë refers to it as a ‘masculine cognomen’), but this literary influence fixed it firmly as a girl's name. It was strongly reinforced during the 1930s and 40s by the popularity of the child film star Shirley Temple (b. 1928).

1. English: from the Middle English personal name Ailmar, Old English Æðelmǣr, composed of the elements æðel ‘noble’ + mǣr ‘famous’, which was reinforced after the Conquest by the introduction of Old French Ailmer, from a Continental cognate.