Shaine
Masculine
Shaine is given to both — 1,013 boys and 222 girls since 1880. See other names given to both
Shaine is two names at once. In Yiddish, shayn means beautiful, and Shaine was an ordinary woman's name in eastern Europe for centuries. In Ireland it is the anglicized spelling of Sean, a man's name, said the same way and meaning something entirely different.
How old is the name Shaine?
Shaine first appears in US birth records in 1969 — 56 years ago. The typical Shaine alive today was born around 1991, making them about 34 years old. About 1,000 people named Shaine are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Shaine most popular?
Shaine peaked in 1987, reaching #1709 nationally. See the whole 1987 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From a Yiddish word meaning beautiful becomes a woman's name to Shaine
The story of Shaine
Yiddish naming worked in pairs. A child had a Hebrew name for religious use and a vernacular one for daily life, and the vernacular one was often a translation or an association rather than a version of the same word. Shaine, beautiful, paired naturally with names about grace and light. What is unusual here is the collision: a Yiddish women's name and an Irish men's name arriving in the same American cities in the same decades, spelled almost identically, and going into the same record with nothing to separate them but the family.
Meaningnot established
Not established
The Yiddish word means beautiful and gave a common woman's name, often paired with a Hebrew equivalent in the way Yiddish naming liked to do. The Irish name is John, worn down through Norman French. The two are unrelated and land on nearly the same letters, which means an American record cannot tell you which family a given Shaine belonged to — and both are in there.
How the name formed
- a Yiddish word meaning beautiful becomes a woman's name
- Irish Sean is anglicized as Shane and Shaine
- both arrive in American cities in the same decades
- the record carries the spelling for both sexes
- Shaine peaks in the late 1980s
Related forms: Shayna · Sean · Shane
Pronouncing Shaine
SHAYN
One syllable, rhyming with rain, in both traditions. The Yiddish woman's name is often two, SHAY-nuh, with the fuller ending.
Nicknames for Shaine
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
- 1969
- Most boys named
- 198739 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1709reached in 1987
- Change vs 2020
- −28.6%5 in 2024, 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.
Shaine in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Shayna in Yiddish — related form
- Sean in Irish — related form
- Shane in English — spelling variant
Shaines among us
people named Shaine are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Shaine sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- It works for a child of either sex, and the record carries it on both sides.
- Two entirely respectable traditions stand behind it.
- Shay is available and is one of the most usable short forms going.
- Shane is far commoner and the spelling will be corrected regularly.
- The two origins point to different sexes, which occasionally confuses forms.
- It is closely dated to the last decades of the century.
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Shaine
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Shaines are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,000 people named Shaine are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Shaine in 2025?
- Shaine is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Shaine with classmates?
- Shaine will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More S names
The most-given names starting with S, all years combined.
Steven#271 · Stephen#383 · Samuel#18 · Scott#534 · Sean#489 · Shawn#681 · Stanley#863 · Steve#1609
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Shaine? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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