Shawn

279,685 people in America carry this name — ranked #191 of 923.

A name with a settled sense and a settled sound.

Say it SHAWN

1 syllable · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

SH AO1 N — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 279,685 2020 Census
  • Per 100,000 92.6 about 1 in 1,185 people
  • As a surname 972 ranked #26,440 the other way round

Where Shawn comes from and what it means

Hebrew in origin, reading literally as “grace of the Lord”.

Origins are a matter of scholarly argument rather than record, and a name can be traced more than one way. We state one reading and say where it came from.

Shawn through the years

337,127 babies were given this name since 1931. The busiest year was 1971, with 14,693 of them.

30 40 50 60 70s 80 90 00 10 20

Most people carrying it were born in the 1970s. It has been given less often of late.

Counted from Social Security card applications, so it covers births registered in the United States and leaves out names given to fewer than five babies in a year.

What goes well after Shawn

One syllable, so a longer middle name gives the whole a rhythm.

Better avoided

  • Shawn Steven — same opening
  • Shawn Nicholas — runs together
  • Shawn Stephen — same opening

Chosen by sound from the pronouncing dictionary, then ordered by how often the name is given. None of it is a rule — the ear decides.

Going quiet

Shawn has more than halved in three decades. The people carrying it belong mostly to Generation X.

Is Shawn a boy's or a girl's name?

90.5% men
26,670 women

As recorded on census returns, not as anyone thinks the name ought to be used.

Names with the same rhythm as Shawn

Nothing else in the file ends on the same sound — a rare thing, and useful if you want a first name nobody will echo.

Same rhythm — 1 syllables, stress on the first

Matched on phonemes, not spelling, so the lists follow the ear rather than the page.

The most common full names

The census counts first names and surnames separately and never together, so these are estimates: how often the two halves would meet if they paired at random. They do not — names cluster by community — so read them as an order of magnitude, not a headcount.

Who has this name today

  • White alone (non-Hispanic) — 75.5%
  • Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 13.2%
  • Hispanic or Latino origin — 3.9%
  • Two or more races — 4.1%
  • Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 2.3%
  • American Indian and Alaska Native alone — 1.1%

Categories are how people answered the census — a fact about the bearers, not a property of the name. Conclusions are ours, not the Census Bureau’s.

Where the name Shawn is most common in the US

In Vermont the name is given 2.3 times as often as it is across the country.

  • Vermont ×2.3
  • Maine ×2.3
  • Montana ×2.2
  • Wyoming ×2.0
  • New Hampshire ×1.9

Measured against the state's own share of births since 1960, so a small state can lead a big one. Counted from Social Security card applications.

This name in other languages

  • Jan Nor.|Dutch|Eng
  • Ian Scottish
  • Ans Lett
  • Jens Danish
  • Jean French
  • Ivka Ill
  • Hans Ger.|Dutch
  • Eoin Irish
  • Ants Esth
  • Jehan French
  • Janos Hungarian
  • Janne Danish
  • Janke Lus
  • Janez Slov

Forms of one name traced to the same root. Spellings are as the glossary printed them, so some look older than the versions in use today.

How to spell Shawn

Shawn is how 63% of them spell it — 447,224 people answer to the sound.

Each spelling is its own census entry — the counts never overlap, so the shares are of the group, not of the country.

Names about as common

The nearest entries above and below by number of people.

Try it Birth Plan Worksheet

Tick what matters, print it, hand it over. Nothing is stored anywhere.

Open Birth Plan Worksheet on its own page

Where this page gets its numbers

  • Counts, ranks and shares: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census tabulations of first and last names occurring 100 or more times. Percentages, bands and groupings are our own arithmetic — the conclusions are ours, not the Bureau’s.
  • Pronunciation, syllables and rhyme groups: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, Carnegie Mellon University. The plain-English respelling is ours.
  • Origins and the forms a name takes in other languages: Charlotte Yonge, History of Christian Names, 1884 — a public-domain work. Scholarship has moved on since, so read it as one reading of a name, not the last word.

Below a hundred people we publish no figure at all — the same threshold the Census Bureau applies to us. What each source covers
Other names of Hebrew origin