Shelby is an English surname and place name, most likely a form of Selby, which comes from Old Norse and means "willow farm". It was mostly a boys' name until the 1989 film Steel Magnolias, with Julia Roberts as Shelby, made it a girls' favorite across the South. Shelby was number 70 in the United States in 2000, peaked at 68 in 2001 and has since slipped to 649 in 2025.