Sharia
Feminine
Sharia was given as a name in the middle of the last century, before the English-speaking world had borrowed the Arabic word this spelling matches, so the collision it now has was not there at the time. A different word about roads shows how far a term can travel from where it started.
How old is the name Sharia?
Sharia first appears in US birth records in 1950 — 75 years ago. The typical Sharia alive today was born around 1988, making them about 37 years old. About 600 people named Sharia are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Sharia most popular?
Sharia peaked in 1977, reaching #2606 nationally. See the whole 1977 chart.
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
Our story of Sharia
Trivial means where three roads meet. The Latin trivium is a junction — tri plus via — and what happens at a junction is that everybody passes and nothing important is said, so trivialis came to mean common, ordinary, the sort of thing you hear at a crossroads. Medieval universities then used trivium for the first three of the seven liberal arts, grammar, logic and rhetoric, taken before the quadrivium of arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy. Those were the elementary subjects, which is where the modern sense of trivial as unimportant gets its second push. So a word for a street corner became a word for a syllabus and then a word for something not worth knowing, and a pub quiz is the end of that road.
Meaningnot established
Not established
It may extend Shari, join the She- and Sha- fronts to an -ia ending, or transliterate the Arabic word. The American entries around it are builds, and no source glosses this spelling.
Pronouncing Sharia
shuh-REE-uh
Three syllables with the stress in the middle. Some families say SHAR-ee-uh with the weight at the front, which distances it from the borrowed word.
Nicknames for Sharia
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
- 1950
- Most girls named
- 197732 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2606reached in 1977
- Change vs 2012
- −28.6%5 in 2020, 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.
Sharias among us
people named Sharia 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
Sharia 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
- Both cuts produce short forms and each is a standing name.
- Middle stress on three syllables is the easiest rhythm English offers.
- Six letters with no silent ones make it simple to spell aloud.
- The spelling now matches a word in political use in English, which it did not when the name was given.
- Sheria, Sharya and Shari will all be written for it.
- Stress placement is unsettled, so strangers will say it two ways.
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Sharia
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Sharias are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 600 people named Sharia are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Sharia in 2025?
- Sharia is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Sharia with classmates?
- Sharia will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More S names
The most-given names starting with S, all years combined.
Susan#1085 · Sarah#90 · Sandra#1207 · Stephanie#557 · Sharon#1250 · Shirley#1581 · Samantha#151 · Sophia#5
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Sharia? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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