National Sharon Day – March 7, 2025

History of National Sharon Day

The name Sharon use as a feminine name began in the early twentieth century, with the name first appearing in the top 1,000 most widely given names in the U.S. in 1925. It was perhaps inspired by the protagonist of Adela Rogers St. Johns’ serial novel “The Skyrocket,” published in 1925 and adapted into a romantic drama film starring Peggy Hopkins Joyce in 1926. Not only that, several blooming plants are known as “Rose of Sharon,” most notably the magnificent yellow blooms of the genus Hypericum or the exquisite pinkish Hibiscus. Sharon started as a unisex name in the eighteenth century but became entirely feminine by the twentieth century.

However, the name’s popularity skyrocketed only in the mid-1930s and peaked throughout the 1940s, staying a top 10 name for most of the decade. Sharron was popular in the U.S. from the 1930s until the 1970s, with peak popularity in 1943. ‘Sharyn,’ a more unusual spelling, was popular for a brief while in the 1940s, peaking in 1945.

Since the 1940s, the name’s popularity has slowly declined, dropping out of the top 100 after 1977 and out of the top 500 after 2001. Its popularity peaked in the U.K. throughout the 1960s. It was the tenth most common female name by 1964 and remained as high as seventeenth in 1974 (while it was ranked seventieth in the U.S.), but a steep decrease in popularity followed, and it has not been in the top 100 since the 1980s. In most other English-speaking nations, including England and Wales, Australia, and New Zealand, the name was most popular in the 1950s and 1960s. Sharon’s popularity in Canada was comparable to that of the U.S., peaking at number five in 1943 and 1944.