Humanverse

Sheamus vs Sherry

American parents have registered 230,913 Sherrys since 1880, against 541 Sheamuses. Sherry is still ahead, with 23 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Sheamus against Sherry, 1880 to 2025 0 2.5k 5k 7.5k 10k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Sheamus Sherry

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Sherry has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1909 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2023, when Sheamus had 17 and Sherry had 21.

Side by side

  Sheamus Sherry
Total US births 541230,913
Most in one year 369,261
Babies in 2025 623
Estimated living today 530190,000
Median age today 1363
Peak year 20141962
Best rank 3,090th boys48th girls
Rank in 2025 10,695th5,410th
First recorded 19811909
Girls / boys 0 / 541229,937 / 976

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Which name is older

Half of the Sherrys alive today are over 63; half the Sheamuses are over 13. That is 50 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Sheamus Sherry
England and Wales 6100

Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Sheamus and Sherry.