Shepherd

Shepherd: name meaning, origin & popularity

Meaning
“sheep herder”
Origin
English
Say it
SHEP-erd · 2 syllables
Used for
Boys

An English occupational surname that has come into occasional use as a given name. It literally denotes someone who tends sheep.

How popular is Shepherd?

2024332 per million US babies
1880192019602000
Drag the line or the slider to read any year. Values are per million US births recorded by Social Security. Records before about 1937 undercount births, so early peaks can look taller than they were.

Babies named Shepherd in 20241,104

2024 rank#311 boys

Peak year2024

Total US babies since 18806,392

Shepherd is rising: use over the last five years is 6.8× what it was a decade earlier.

Names like Shepherd

Variants, related forms and names with the same roots.

Shepherd questions

What does the name Shepherd mean?

Shepherd means "sheep herder". It comes from English. An English occupational surname that has come into occasional use as a given name. It literally denotes someone who tends sheep.

Is Shepherd a boy or girl name?

Shepherd is mainly a boy's name in US records (100% of uses since 1880).

How popular is Shepherd?

1,104 US babies were named Shepherd in 2024. Its peak year was 2024.

How do you pronounce Shepherd?

Shepherd is usually pronounced SHEP-erd.

Birth counts: US Social Security Administration national data, 1880–2024 (names given to 5+ babies of a sex in a year). How we write meanings.