Surname
- Shirley is a rather uncommon surname, with pockets of Shirleys living in Idaho, Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, Canada, New Zealand, and parts of Great Britain. A work on the genealogy of the various branches of the Shirley family was published as Stemmata Shirleiana by E.P Shirley in 1841.
- Shirley is the surname of the title character in "Anne of Green Gables", a novel published in 1908 by Lucy Maude Montgomery about an orphan girl in the Canadian province of Prince Edward Island. Notably, there are no Shirleys listed in current (2007) telephone books for the entire province. It is likely Montgomery had heard the name associated with the neighboring province of Nova Scotia.
- Bob Shirley, American baseball player
- Don Shirley, American-Jamaican jazz pianist and composer
- Drew Shirley, guitarist
- James Shirley (or Sherley) (1596–1666), English dramatist
- Jerry Shirley, English drummer
- Paul Shirley, American basketball player and writer
- Randall Shirley, award-winning Canada-based American journalist
- Simon Shirley, Australian decathlete
- Steve Shirley (Dame Stephanie Shirley), UK businesswoman
- William Shirley (1694–1771), British colonial governor of Massachusetts
Graham E. Shirley (1943-)US Air Force General
Read more about this topic: Shirley (name)