Holiday Calendar

National Shirley Day

Next celebratedSaturday, March 6, 2027

Shirley peaked for both sexes in the same year, 1935, ranking second among American girls while a record 435 boys received it too.

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Last updated August 19, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?
YEARLY DATEMarch 6
OBSERVED INInternationally
CATEGORYNames
ORIGIN

Community Origin

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

A day the calendars carry but cannot date.

National Shirley Day circulates through independent holiday-listing sites and the hashtags #NationalShirleyDay and #ShirleyDay, but its own beginning is not documented. The listings that carry it disagree about the year it started, and none of them cites a source or names a person behind it.

+ Know the story? Submit a founder Help us complete this holiday
INTRO

1935: the year Shirley peaked for both sexes at once

National Shirley Day belongs to a name that once ran in two directions at the same time. In 1935 it was the second most popular name given to American girls. That year 42,366 girls received it.

The same year, 435 American boys were named Shirley. That is the highest the name has ever reached on the boys' side of the national register. Both peaks landed inside the same twelve months, which is not how a name is supposed to change hands.

The tidy explanation is that Shirley Temple made Shirley a girls' name. The register does not support it. As for the day, the calendars that carry it disagree about when it began, and not one of them says who put it there.

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ORIGINS

Shirley Day history

INTRODUCTION

Before Shirley was anyone's name, it was a description of a piece of ground. The Old English elements behind it are scir, meaning bright, and leah, a woodland clearing. English families who came from such a clearing carried the place with them as a surname.

CHAPTER 01

The name reaches print on a heroine

The given name came last of all. Charlotte Brontë published her novel Shirley in 1849 and gave its title to her heroine. Before that book the name was rare for men and unrecorded for women.

Two years later a Gold Rush correspondent signed herself Shirley in a California newspaper. Louise Clappe kept the pen name through her letters from the mining camps and is remembered as Dame Shirley.

CHAPTER 02

The register opens with the boys ahead

The American national name record begins in 1880. That first year the name went to 10 boys against 8 girls.

Boys stayed ahead in five of those early years. The last of them was 1886, and from then on girls led in every year the register covers.

CHAPTER 03

Two curves, one summit

By 1927 Shirley was already the ninth most popular girls' name in the country. Shirley Temple was born the following year.

Her breakout came with Bright Eyes in 1934, and the name climbed again on both sides of the register at once. It reached the top ten for girls in England and Wales in the same year.

The boys' version faded slowly rather than all at once. It held a place in the top thousand for American boys until 1957. The last boys recorded with the name arrived in 1993, and the day that now marks the name is younger, thinner, and much harder to date.

TIMELINE

Timeline

A novel gives the name a heroine

Charlotte Brontë published Shirley, the earliest prominent use of the name for a woman.

Dame Shirley signs the Gold Rush

Louise Clappe began writing for the Marysville Daily Herald under the pen name Shirley, which she kept through her mining-camp letters.

The American register opens

The first year of national name data records the name going to slightly more boys than girls.

Shirley enters the girls' top ten

The name reached ninth among American girls a year before Shirley Temple was born.

The last ranked year for boys

Shirley appeared in the American top thousand for boys for the final time.

The final boys named Shirley

The national data records the name for American boys for the last time, and none after it.

BY THE NUMBERS

National Shirley Day by the Numbers

686,383
US girls named Shirley since 1880
9,551
US boys named Shirley since 1880
#259
Peak US boys' rank, 1935
133
US girls given the name in 2025

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why We Love National Shirley Day

RECORD

The register keeps what memory rounds off.

Most claims about how a name moves between the sexes rest on impression and family memory. Shirley's use by each sex is counted year by year in a public national dataset, so the two curves can be checked instead of recalled.

PAPERWORK

What happens when a name is read as a sex

Shirley Povich wrote sports for the Washington Post for decades and was listed by mistake in Who's Who of American Women. Walter Cronkite wired him afterwards to ask, "Miss Povich, will you marry me?"

SCARCITY

A name on its way out of the lists

Shirley last appeared in the American top thousand for girls in 2008 and has sat outside it since. A name day gives the remaining bearers a fixed point on the calendar while the name itself thins out.

I've been hearing this is no longer a man's world and I'm glad to be listed officially on the winning side.
Shirley PovichSports columnist, The Washington Post
bestowed on her the same masculine family cognomen they would have bestowed on a boy
Charlotte BrontëNovelist, writing in Shirley in 1849

GET INVOLVED

How to Celebrate National Shirley Day

EDITOR'S PICK

Read the passage that gave the name a heroine

One aside in the eleventh chapter of Charlotte Brontë's Shirley explains why a girl ended up wearing her family's surname. The full text is free at Project Gutenberg.

LOOK

Look your own family up in the register

The Social Security Administration publishes every American given name by year and sex back to 1880. Download the national data files and find the Shirleys in your relatives' birth years.

WATCH

Watch a film from the year the name doubled

Shirley Temple made Stand Up and Cheer!, Little Miss Marker and Bright Eyes inside a single year. Any of the three shows what the country was watching while the name was climbing.

ASK

Ask a Shirley how she got her name

Naming decisions are rarely written down and often surprise the person telling them. Ask which relative, film, or accident put the name on the birth certificate.

BUILD

Build the day around the guest of honor

A name day is one of the few occasions that arrives with its own guest list. Invite the Shirleys you know and let the day belong to them.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know National Shirley Day?

1 / 8

What did the name Shirley describe before it described a person?

Answer

No. It is an unofficial observance, not a public holiday, so it is a normal working day.

COLOPHON

Sources

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

9sources
3primary records
5independently dated
Primary records
U.S. Social Security Administration
Popular Baby Names: National Data
The complete national record of American given names by year and sex from 1880 onward, listing every name and sex pair with at least five births. Every count and rank on this page is drawn from it.
View source
U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian2024-03-14
Shirley Jane Temple Black (1928-2014)
The department's own record of Shirley Temple Black, giving her dates, her appointment as Ambassador to Ghana in 1974, and her service as Chief of Protocol.
View source
Project Gutenberg1849
Shirley, by Charlotte Brontë (eBook 30486)
The full text of the 1849 novel, including the aside explaining that the heroine was given her family's masculine surname because her parents had wanted a son.
View source
Additional coverage
The Washington Post1998-06-05
Post Sports Columnist Shirley Povich Dies
The obituary of the male sportswriter Shirley Povich, covering his mistaken inclusion in Who's Who of American Women, the telegrams it prompted, and his own reply.
View source
Behind the Name
Meaning, origin and history of the name Shirley
An onomastic reference entry giving the Old English elements scir and leah, the route from place name to surname to given name, and the note that the name was already popular in America before Shirley Temple.
View source
Goldfields Books2019-07-29
How Louise Clappe Became Shirley
A local history account of the Gold Rush writer's pen name, which also records that before 1849 the name was rare for men and unknown for women.
View source
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Shirley Temple
A reference biography covering her birth in 1928, her 1934 films Stand Up and Cheer!, Little Miss Marker and Bright Eyes, and the special Academy Award that followed.
View source
Gothamist2024-11-18
NYC Council declares Nov. 30 'Shirley Chisholm Day'
Coverage of the New York City Council resolution designating November 30 as Shirley Chisholm Day, the separate observance readers most often confuse with this one.
View source
EventGuide
National Shirley Day
An independent listing of the observance on March 6 with its hashtags, and one of the conflicting unsourced start years that make the day's own beginning impossible to date.
View source
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