Holiday Calendar

National Cheryl Day

Next celebratedWednesday, December 30, 2026

National Cheryl Day is a nod to a name that filled mid-century classrooms and is hardly given to babies now. Credit usually goes to a Rose Queen who became an actress, and the strongest word the sources will use is seems.

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Last updated September 7, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?
YEARLY DATEDecember 30
OBSERVED INUnited States
CATEGORYNames
ORIGIN

Community Origin

FOUNDING ENTITY
Not documented
FIRST OBSERVED
Not documented
HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

The strongest trace is British, not American.

National Cheryl Day's strongest attested observance is British: newsroom posts in UK titles have marked it on 30 December in consecutive years, though the day is carried here as a United States observance. No founder, establishing act or first observance is documented.

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INTRO

Two wartime years no other American name matched

National Cheryl Day belongs to a name that once climbed faster than anything else on the American birth rolls. In 1943 it recorded the largest one-year rise in share of any comparable girls' name in the country. It did the same thing again the year after.

The comparison set was every girls' name with at least 100 births in the preceding year. Cheryl finished first out of 758. The next year it finished first out of 782.

Apply the identical test to the Shirley Temple spike and Shirley finishes fourth. Cheryl finishes first, twice. The day itself is nowhere near as well documented as the name it marks, and the name's paper trail is the stranger of the two.

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ORIGINS

Cheryl Day history

INTRODUCTION

The 1938 Tournament of Roses was themed Playland Fantasies, and its Rose Queen was a young woman from Pasadena named Cheryl Walker. The Tournament's own historical list still records her there. The name she carried was, at that point, almost unheard of.

Five years later she turned up in Stage Door Canteen, the wartime picture the American Theatre Wing lent its name to. The AFI Catalog lists her first among the film's story characters, playing Eileen, an aspiring actress who volunteers as a canteen hostess.

CHAPTER 01

What the reference books will and will not say

Behind the Name, drawing on Hanks and Hodges, states that the name "seems to have been popularized in America" by Walker. The word carrying that sentence is "seems", and no account found for this page goes further.

CHAPTER 02

The year that worked from every angle

Peak years are usually slippery: a name can top out in one year by count, another by share, and a third by rank. Cheryl had no such ambiguity. All three measures land on 1958.

It was also the only year the name reached the top thousand for American boys, with 59 of them given it. Across the whole federal record only 978 boys were. They are spread over 46 separate years.

CHAPTER 03

The one year the fall stopped

From 1971 the name fell every single year for two decades, with one exception. Twenty-five comparable mid-century names had been sliding across the same stretch. Cheryl was the only one of them that rose in 1978.

The claim should not be stretched past that. Against every American girls' name of comparable size, Cheryl's move that year ranks 28th rather than first. As for the cause, the one account that takes it up credits "actress Cheryl Ladd, singer Cheryl Lynn, and/or model Cheryl Tiegs" and refuses to choose between them.

CHAPTER 04

A day with nothing attached to it

The observance arrives at the end of all this with almost no record of its own. Searches for a founder, a first year, or an establishing act come back empty, and the earliest archived page mentioning it was captured in December 2022. The name's whole American run sits in a public federal file, year by year, and almost nothing about the day does.

TIMELINE

Timeline

Cheryl enters the national data

Five American girls were recorded with the name, its first appearance in the Social Security Administration's annual files.

Cheryl Walker crowned Rose Queen

Walker was crowned Rose Queen of the Tournament of Roses, and the name's share of American girl births rose 164 percent that year.

Stage Door Canteen reaches cinemas

Walker took the role of Eileen, a volunteer hostess, in the film named for the real New York canteen.

Cheryl peaks at number 13

24,119 American girls were given the name, its strongest year by count, by share and by rank at once.

A twenty year slide breaks

The name's share of American girl births rose 49 percent, its only increase in two decades.

Cheryl leaves the top 1,000

The name made the national list for the last time, and has stayed off it every year through 2025.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why We Love National Cheryl Day

DEMOGRAPHY

Almost nine in ten American Cheryls were born between 1943 and 1970.

American records hold 439,539 girls given the name since 1880. Almost nine in ten of them were born between 1943 and 1970, which makes the day a marker for a single generation rather than a nod to a current fashion.

EVIDENCE

Two newsrooms mark it, neither claims an origin

WalesOnline posted on the day in 2024, and Mirror Celebrity News did the same a year later, each addressing people with the name directly. Neither offered an origin, which is the clearest sign the day is kept rather than promoted.

DECLINE

The name it honours has nearly stopped being given

Thirty two American girls were named Cheryl in 2025, the most recent year on the federal record. The day therefore points at a name near the end of its run rather than one in current use.

MYTH VS FACT

Common Misconceptions

The myth

Cheryl was invented in the 1920s and has no history before that.

The truth

American federal records list the name from 1909, when five girls were given it. The agency withholds any name with fewer than five births in a year, so even 1909 is a floor on the name's age rather than its starting point.

The myth

The origin of the name is settled.

The truth

The reference works hedge. Behind the Name, citing Hanks and Hodges, gives it as an elaboration of Cherie, perhaps influenced by Beryl, and notes it was very rare before the twentieth century. The Welsh Carys link and the Cherry-from-Charity story that circulate online appear in neither reference work Behind the Name cites.

The myth

A name has one popularity ranking.

The truth

Two ranking conventions are in live use and they disagree about Cheryl by a place. Behind the Name prints its 1997 rank as 985, while the Social Security Administration's own stated rule produces 986. Where the two agree, as they do on the 1958 peak, a rank is safe to quote.

GET INVOLVED

How to Celebrate National Cheryl Day

EDITOR'S PICK

Look up a Cheryl's birth year in the data

The Social Security Administration publishes a national count for every name and year since 1880. Looking one up turns an abstract name into a number you can set beside an actual birthday.

WATCH

Watch Stage Door Canteen

The 1943 picture is where Cheryl Walker played Eileen, the canteen hostess. Watching it puts you in front of the performance the reference books keep pointing at.

WRITE

Write to the Cheryls, Sheryls and Cherylls

The name travelled as a cluster of spellings rather than one, so a note that takes in the variants is truer to the record. A message costs nothing and reaches the people the day is actually about.

COMPARE

Compare the name against the ones it fell with

Sharon, Karen, Donna and Linda were all sliding through the same 1970s years as Cheryl. Setting their curves side by side shows how much of a name's arc belongs to its cohort rather than to itself.

EXPLAIN

Explain the arc to someone who carries the name

Anyone with a mid-century name has a measured curve behind it, sitting in a public federal file. Walking a Cheryl through hers turns a greeting into something more specific than a greeting.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know National Cheryl Day?

1 / 8

What was unusual about the name Cheryl in 1978?

Answer

No. It is an unofficial observance with no legal standing, so it is a normal working day. A Federal Register search returns no document containing the name.

COLOPHON

Sources

How we know what’s on this page. References, not endorsements.

9sources
7primary records
6independently dated
Primary records
US Social Security Administration2026-03-01
Popular Names by Birth Year: national data and documentation
The federal dataset behind every figure on this page, giving name, sex and count for each birth year from 1880 to 2025, together with the agency's note that ties are listed alphabetically and that names under five births a year are withheld.
View source
US Social Security Administration
Popular Names in the 1960s
The agency's own published decade ranking, which numbers exactly tied names consecutively and so establishes how a rank is derived from its files.
View source
Pasadena Tournament of Roses Association2019-01-16
Tournament of Roses historical list of themes, presidents, grand marshals and Rose Queens
The organisation's own record of every Tournament, listing Cheryl Walker as Rose Queen of the 1938 parade themed Playland Fantasies.
View source
American Film Institute
AFI Catalog: Stage Door Canteen (1943)
Full credits and synopsis for the 1943 film, listing Cheryl Walker first among its story characters in the role of Eileen, and recording the American Theatre Wing's operation of the real canteen on 44th Street in New York.
View source
Office of the Federal Register
Federal Register documents API, exact-phrase search for National Cheryl Day
Returns zero federal documents containing the phrase, which is the basis for the page's statement that the day has no official standing.
View source
WalesOnline2024-12-30
WalesOnline marks National Cheryl Day, 30 December 2024
A national newsroom observing the day on its date and addressing readers who have the name, with no origin claim attached.
View source
Mirror Celebrity News2025-12-30
Mirror Celebrity News marks National Cheryl Day, 30 December 2025
The same observance a year later, addressed to the Cheryls, Sheryls and Cherylls together, and again with no origin claim.
View source
Additional coverage
Behind the Name2026-05-26
Meaning, origin and history of the name Cheryl
The reference entry giving Cheryl as an elaboration of Cherie perhaps influenced by Beryl, sourced to Hanks and Hodges and to Cleveland Kent Evans, and printing US ranks that follow a different tie-breaking convention from the agency's own.
View source
Nancy's Baby Names2024-02-01
What popularized the baby name Cheryl in the 1940s?
The fullest published account of the name's popularity history, which attributes the late 1970s uptick to Cheryl Ladd, Cheryl Lynn and/or Cheryl Tiegs without choosing between them.
View source
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