Shayla
- Pronunciation
- [Shay-la]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- Fairy
- Origin
- Celtic
About the Name Shayla
Shayla is attributed a Celtic origin with the meaning "fairy" — evoking the supernatural beings of Irish mythology, the síde, who dwelt in the fairy mounds and were associated with beauty, magic, and the otherworld. The name appears to be a phonetic anglicization in the tradition of names like Sheila — itself derived from Síle, an Irish form of Cecilia — though Shayla's precise etymological path is not fully documented. What is clear is that its cultural associations with the ethereal and the otherworldly have given it an evocative, dreamy quality that resonated with parents in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The name's easy two-syllable flow, its soft opening consonant cluster, and its open vowel ending combine to produce a sound that feels both Celtic and broadly feminine in the American context where it found its greatest popularity.
Shayla appears in the US Social Security top-1000 from 2000 and reached its peak rank of #297 in 2001. It maintained strong presence through the 2000s before declining through the 2010s: #749 in 2014, #797 in 2015, and #986 in 2016, the last year it appeared in the top-1000. Over its chart run, approximately 12,738 births carried this spelling in top-1000 years. Recorded variants include Shaela and Shaylynn.
Shayla's combination of Celtic mythological meaning, accessible sound, and dreamy connotations gave it an evocative appeal that translated well across both Irish-heritage and broader American communities during its peak years.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Shayla
US Popularity History (2000–2016)
Annual US births named Shayla by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2001 with 1,052 girls named Shayla (girl rank #297 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2016, ranked #986 for girls (270 US births). That's 689 places below its 2001 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Where in the US Is Shayla Most Popular?
Average girl-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's girls-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Shayla the strongest states are Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania.
Strongest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Massachusetts | #759 | 28 |
| 2 | New Jersey | #817 | 49 |
| 3 | Pennsylvania | #901 | 42 |
| 4 | Virginia | #930 | 24 |
| 5 | Minnesota | #934 | 16 |
| 6 | New York | #996 | 69 |
| 7 | North Carolina | #1,048 | 26 |
| 8 | Florida | #1,162 | 57 |
| 9 | California | #1,177 | 125 |
Weakest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | California | #1,177 | 125 |
| 2 | Florida | #1,162 | 57 |
| 3 | North Carolina | #1,048 | 26 |
| 4 | New York | #996 | 69 |
| 5 | Minnesota | #934 | 16 |
| 6 | Virginia | #930 | 24 |
| 7 | Pennsylvania | #901 | 42 |
| 8 | New Jersey | #817 | 49 |
| 9 | Massachusetts | #759 | 28 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Shayla in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
Looking for names like Shayla?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Shayla to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Shayla against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).