Rashaan
Masculine
Rashaan is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 1,188 boys against 28 girls since 1880.
Roland Kirk added Rahsaan to his name after hearing it in a dream in 1970. He said the dream told him to, and he used it for the rest of his career, which is one of the clearest cases of a name arriving from nowhere.
How old is the name Rashaan?
Rashaan first appears in US birth records in 1971 — 54 years ago. The typical Rashaan alive today was born around 1995, making them about 30 years old. About 1,100 people named Rashaan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Rashaan most popular?
Rashaan peaked in 1995, reaching #937 nationally. Today it ranks #10695, 9,758 places below that high. See the whole 1995 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
Our story of Rashaan
Kirk was blind from infancy, played three saxophones at once, invented instruments, and used circular breathing to sustain a line for minutes at a stretch. In 1970 he announced that a dream had told him to add Rahsaan to his name, and he did, without offering a meaning for it. That is a rare and honest thing in naming: most invented names are given an etymology afterwards, often by someone selling a book, and this one was not. The spelling entered wider American use in the following decades in several forms, Rashaan, Rashawn and Rahsaan among them, and merged with the large family of Ra- names already in circulation. Where a name genuinely has no meaning, saying so is more informative than supplying one.
Meaningnot established
Not established
Rashaan is an American formation from the Ra- opening and a -shaan ending. The jazz musician Rahsaan Roland Kirk took his form of the name from a dream in 1970 and it spread from there; no inherited etymology is documented. The peak of this spelling is 1995.
Pronouncing Rashaan
ruh-SHAWN
Two syllables, stress on the second. The doubled a marks a long open vowel rather than two sounds.
Nicknames for Rashaan
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1971
- Most boys named
- 1995140 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #937reached in 1995
- Change vs 2024
- −14.3%6 in 2025, from 7
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Rashaan in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Rashawn in English — related form
- Rahsaan in English — spelling variant
Rashaans among us
people named Rashaan are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 284,679 born in 2025 was named Rashaan
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Akira test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Rashaan's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Akira climbed just as high around 1927, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Akira's path sketches the road Rashaan is walking now.
Rashaan sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Rashaan beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Rashaan in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Two syllables with a firm ending.
- The spelling makes the long vowel explicit.
- It has a documented and unusual modern origin.
- Several spellings compete and none is standard.
- It has no inherited meaning.
- The 1995 peak dates this form.
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What they receive
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Rashaan
Masculine · #10695 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Rashaans are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,100 people named Rashaan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Rashaan in 2025?
- Rashaan ranks #10695 among US boy names in 2025, with 6 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Rashaan?
- About 1 in every 284,679 US boys born in 2025 was named Rashaan — 6 in all.
- Will my child share the name Rashaan with classmates?
- Rashaan will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Rashaan
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Dudley#10695 · Dell#10695 · Buford#10695 · Toney#10695 · Allison#10695 · Candido#10695 · Jodie#10695 · Nora#10695
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Rashaan? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Rashaan and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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