# Shipley (surname)

Source: https://namelineage.com/surname/shipley/  
Publisher: Name Lineage. Counts from the US Census Bureau; origin and etymology from Wiktionary; bearers from Wikidata. Data updated 2026-11-11.

A habitational surname from Old English

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Origin | English |
| Type | place, taken from where an ancestor lived or came from |
| People in the US (2010 Census) | 19,563 |
| US rank (2010) | 1,831 of 162,253 |
| How often | about 1 in every 15,782 people |
| Change since 2000 | +4.2% (18,770 in 2000) |
| Pronunciation | /ˈʃɪpli/, 2 syllables |
| Variant spellings | none recorded |

## Etymology

From Old English scēap (“sheep”) + lēah (“meadow, field, pasture”), thus a field for grazing sheep; equivalent to sheep + -ley. Compare Gateley (literally “goat lea”).

## Who carries it

Share of people named Shipley in the 2010 US Census by the Census's own race and ethnicity groups. The Census suppresses a share when the count behind it is small.

| Group | Share |
|---|---|
| White (not Hispanic) | 92% |
| Black (not Hispanic) | 2.9% |
| Hispanic or Latino (any race) | 2.3% |
| Asian and Pacific Islander | 0.5% |
| American Indian and Alaska Native | 0.8% |
| Two or more races | 1.7% |

## Similar surnames

Shepley, Sibley, Shively, Sipple, Siple, Sevilla, Spell, Seibel, Sabol, Sobel, Saville, Savala.

## How to read these numbers

A Census count is people alive and counted in 2010, not births, and names occurring fewer than 100 times are not published at all. Ethnicity shares are the Census's own categories.