Shana
Feminine · “beautiful”
Shana is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 29,635 girls against 113 boys since 1880.
Shana arrives from two directions and lands in the same place. In Yiddish it is an adjective meaning beautiful; in American English it is a feminine built on Shane, the Irish form of John.
How old is the name Shana?
Shana first appears in US birth records in 1937 — 88 years ago. The typical Shana alive today was born around 1981, making them about 44 years old. About 28,500 people named Shana are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Shana most popular?
Shana peaked in 1984, reaching #174 nationally. Today it ranks #5099, 4,925 places below that high. See the whole 1984 chart.
Where it comes from
From sheyne to Shana
The story of Shana
Yiddish naming used ordinary descriptive adjectives freely, and Sheyne was among the commonest, brought to America with Ashkenazi emigration and anglicized as Shana or Shayna. Separately, the Irish Seán became Shane in English respelling, and American families built feminines on it in the usual way. The two streams met in the records of the 1960s and 1970s, and Shana peaked at the end of the 1970s.
Meaningscholars disagree
beautiful
The Yiddish sheyne, 'beautiful', gives a transparent and genuine meaning, and Shana and Shayna are established Jewish names on that basis. The competing route treats the name as a feminine of Shane, from the Irish Seán and so from the Hebrew Yohanan, 'the Lord is gracious'. Both are real and the spelling does not distinguish them.
How the name formed
- sheyne
- Shayna
- Shana
Related forms: Shayna · Shani · Shanna
Pronouncing Shana
SHAY-nuh
Two syllables, stress on the first. Some families say SHAH-nuh or SHAN-uh instead; all three are current and the spelling settles none of them.
Nicknames for Shana
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
- 1937
- Most girls named
- 19851,423 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #174reached in 1984
- Change vs 2023
- 0.0%25 in 2025, from 25
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.
Shana in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Shayna in Yiddish — spelling variant
- Shani in Hebrew — related form
- Shanna in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: New York, New Jersey.
Shanas among us
people named Shana are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 64,291 born in 2025 was named Shana
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Shana
- #5099
- Shana on the 2025 chart
- #928
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Shana went to 25 girls in 2025, but Shanna is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 32, which makes it the 928th most-given girls’ name of the year — 4,171 places above the chart.
- Shana25
- Shanna7
About 1 girl in 50,227 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 64,291 for Shana itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Dorothea test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Shana's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Dorothea climbed just as high around 1912, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Dorothea's path sketches the road Shana is walking now.
Shana 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
Where Shana is headed
Shana looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 16% more babies a year by 2030 if the current curve holds. Its history is short or jumpy, though, so read this as a sketch rather than a promise.
Low confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Shana beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Shana in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The Yiddish reading gives a transparent and attractive meaning in a real living language.
- Two soft syllables, easy in almost any accent.
- It connects to two entirely separate traditions, either of which a family can claim.
- Three pronunciations are current and the spelling does not choose between them.
- Shana and Shanna are easily confused and have partly different origins.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Shana
Feminine · #5099 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Shanas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 28,500 people named Shana are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Shana?
- Shana is the most-used spelling in US records — 25 of the 32 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Shanna.
- How popular is the name Shana in 2025?
- Shana ranks #5099 among US girl names in 2025, with 25 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Shana?
- About 1 in every 64,291 US girls born in 2025 was named Shana — 25 in all.
- Will my child share the name Shana with classmates?
- Shana will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Shana
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Janette#5099 · Loraine#5099 · Delfina#5099 · Hali#5099 · Mecca#5099 · Zoi#5099 · Afia#5099 · Emelie#5099
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Shana? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Shana and another name?
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Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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