Shell
surname · English · Latin script
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Shell is a surname, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. In Lesotho it is the 5th most common surname. It appears chiefly in English and Spanish, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: ka, def. st. kéi; also the scales of serpents.
- USUnited States1 in 25K◐
- AUAustralia1 in 53K
- CACanada1 in 55K
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈14K ●
- Sources
- 327 ●
- 1 in 25K ◐
across 7 countries
132K records
Official registry-verified
United States
Meaning & origin●
ka, def. st. kéi; also the scales of serpents. Shell of the poya, used in the Poro
Sources 1
- Vocabulary of the Mende Language
Attested across 14 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world●
Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | — | 13,369 | 113K rec. | 1 in 25K | 13K | Shell | 327 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | 3,827 | 5.2K rec. | — | listed | Shell | 84 |
| AU Australia | — | 1,595 | 2.3K rec. | — | — | Shell | 57 |
| CA Canada | — | 1,351 | 1.9K rec. | — | — | Shell | 56 |
| IT Italy | — | 566 | 785 rec. | — | listed | Shell | 14 |
| IL Israel | — | 322 | 383 rec. | — | — | Shell | 7 |
| GH Ghana | #795 | 308 | 326 rec. | — | — | Shell | 6 |
| LS Lesotho | #5 | 302 | 646 rec. | — | — | Shell | 1 |
| LR Liberia | #34 | 287 | 909 rec. | — | — | Shell | 1 |
| ES Spain | — | 285 | 334 rec. | — | — | Shell | 6 |
| BR Brazil | — | 280 | 0 rec. | 1 in 756K | 280 | — | 1 |
| AR Argentina | — | 32 | 0 rec. | 1 in 1.4M | 32 | — | 1 |
Roughly 13K people in United States bear this name (about 1 in 25K). Estimates project the name's share of our records onto national population, so each is only as good as the record base beside it — the Basis column gives that base; rows marked △ rest on fewer records than the estimate itself and are order-of-magnitude at best.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.
Languages●
- English104K86%
- Spanish3.4K3%
- 2.9K2%
- German1.2K1%
- French7061%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| English | 103,514 | 86% |
| Spanish | 3,401 | 3% |
| 2,851 | 2% | |
| German | 1,201 | 1% |
| French | 706 | 1% |
Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.
Other recorded senses●
Shell is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, from Shell (Worcestershire); first attested John Shette 1340 NIWo
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
In English, A hard external covering of an animal.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, v., ndole
as a wordVocabulary of the Mende Language
In cdo, Avaricious, stingy, mean, sordid, sparing ; to dislike, to part w\t]\u, to spare ； re<^*€stting^, asliJUB'
as a wordAn Alphabetic Dictionary of the Chinese Language in the Foochow Dialect
English: 1 Normally a short form of MICHELLE . 2 In some cases it may be a back-formation from SHELLEY (as if this contained the hypocoristic suffix -( e ) y ) or simply a shortened form of SHELLEY . Top
as a word
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Over time●
Show as table
| Year | records |
|---|---|
| 1925 | 1 |
| 1930 | 1 |
| 1933 | 1 |
| 1934 | 2 |
| 1935 | 1 |
| 1937 | 1 |
| 1938 | 1 |
| 1939 | 4 |
| 1940 | 2 |
| 1942 | 3 |
| 1943 | 2 |
| 1944 | 3 |
| 1945 | 6 |
| 1946 | 3 |
| 1947 | 7 |
| 1948 | 5 |
| 1949 | 5 |
| 1950 | 6 |
| 1951 | 6 |
| 1952 | 7 |
| 1953 | 6 |
| 1954 | 4 |
| 1955 | 6 |
| 1956 | 2 |
| 1957 | 9 |
| 1958 | 7 |
| 1959 | 9 |
| 1960 | 9 |
| 1961 | 4 |
| 1962 | 11 |
| 1963 | 9 |
| 1964 | 13 |
| 1965 | 14 |
| 1966 | 9 |
| 1967 | 15 |
| 1968 | 12 |
| 1969 | 12 |
| 1970 | 9 |
| 1971 | 13 |
| 1972 | 10 |
| 1973 | 8 |
| 1974 | 10 |
| 1975 | 6 |
| 1976 | 9 |
| 1977 | 11 |
| 1978 | 7 |
| 1979 | 7 |
| 1980 | 9 |
| 1981 | 5 |
| 1982 | 11 |
| 1983 | 7 |
| 1984 | 6 |
| 1985 | 6 |
| 1986 | 11 |
| 1987 | 6 |
| 1988 | 9 |
| 1989 | 7 |
| 1990 | 4 |
| 1991 | 6 |
| 1992 | 9 |
| 1993 | 7 |
| 1994 | 8 |
| 1995 | 4 |
| 1996 | 3 |
| 1997 | 5 |
| 1998 | 1 |
| 2010 | 3 |
| 2011 | 3 |
| 2012 | 1 |
| 2014 | 2 |
IN naampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls) — 70 years between 1925–2014. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.
Notable people with this name●
- George W. Shellb. 1831USAmerican politician (1831-1899)
- Donald L. Shellb. 1924USAmerican computer scientist (1924–2015)
- Art Shellb. 1946USAmerican football player and coach
- Susan Shellb. 1948USAmerican philosopher
- Donnie Shellb. 1952USAmerican football player
- Suzanne Shellb. 1957American activist
- Tim Shellb. 1968USAmerican businessperson
- Brandon Shellb. 1992USAmerican football player
- Amy Shell-Gellaschb. 2000USMathematician
- Ray ShellUSAmerican actor
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
Evidence●
Attested in 22 sources across 11 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 13K | #2,696 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 13K | #2,523 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 12K | #2,894 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 571 | #15,379 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 280 | #28,013 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 178 | #15,379 |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national) | — | 32 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1965 | 16 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1963 | 16 | — |
| IN India | naampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls) | 1967 | 15 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1963 | 15 | — |
| IN India | naampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls) | 1965 | 14 | — |
Reference works 3
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 172 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Shell?
- We estimate roughly 14 thousand people bear Shell (counting its spellings and scripts) across 7 countries in our records.
- In which country does Shell have the most bearers?
- We estimate about 13 thousand people bear Shell in the United States, more than in any other country in our records, where it is most often spelled shell.
- How common is Shell compared with other names?
- In Lesotho, Shell is the 5th most common surname of 3,869 surnames recorded there.
- What does the name Shell mean?
- Recorded meaning: ka, def. st. kéi; also the scales of serpents.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/shellThe same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use. Bulk access and licensing.
About this data
Data snapshot . Figures are rebuilt periodically and will change.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Shell” — the 5th most common surname in Lesotho. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.