In 2025, 268 US boys were named Shepard, making it the 892nd most common boys’ name of the year, up 53 places from #945 in 2024. That is 24 more than the 244 boys named Shepard in 2024. Its best rank for boys was #892, reached in this year, 2025. That year also had the most boys given the name: 268. For comparison, it was #1,459 in 2015 and #3,279 in 1950.
Social Security card records list Shepard in 96 years of the 146 from 1880 to 2025, starting in 1912 with 9 babies. In all, 3,719 US babies have been given the name, 0.1% of them girls and 99.8% boys. Its busiest decade was the 2020s, with 1,479 babies named Shepard.
Over the 10 years from 2016 to 2025, 2,314 US boys were named Shepard; the busiest of those years was 2025, with 268. In 2025 that was about 1 in 6,373 of the boys in SSA’s list for the year.
Among the states, Shepard ranked highest in Oklahoma in 2025, at #326 for boys there. It was not in the top 100 of any state. Rarer spellings such as Sheppard and Sheperd are summarised on this page.