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Shenandoah vs Sherry

American parents have registered 230,913 Sherrys since 1880, against 459 Shenandoahs. Sherry is still ahead, with 23 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Shenandoah 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 2024, when Shenandoah had 5 and Sherry had 16.

Side by side

  Shenandoah Sherry
Total US births 459230,913
Most in one year 239,261
Babies in 2025 under 523
Estimated living today 440190,000
Median age today 4163
Peak year 19951962
Best rank 5,221st girls48th girls
Rank in 2025 unranked5,410th
First recorded 19651909
Girls / boys 347 / 112229,937 / 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 Shenandoahs are over 41. That is 22 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

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