- 5,195
- people in the U.S. have this name Get contact details for people named Shirley Williams
Meaning & Origins
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).
| 79th in the U.S. for 2011 |
English (also very common in Wales): patronymic from William.
| 3rd in the U.S. for 2011 |
Nicknames & variations
Shirlee, Shirl, Shirly, Shirlie, Shirle, Shirla, Shirely, Shirelle, Shirell, Shirrell
Willis, Williamson, William, Wills, Willard, Willoughby, Willingham, Willey, Willett, Will
Top state populations
U.S. Distribution Map
