Shaun
Feminine · “God has been gracious”
Shaun is given to both — 3,129 girls and 70,481 boys since 1880. See Shaun as a boy nameSee other names given to both
Shaun is the spelling Britain and Ireland use and Shawn is the one America settled on, for the same Irish name said the same way. Both are attempts at writing down a word whose own spelling gives an English reader no help at all.
How old is the name Shaun?
Shaun first appears in US birth records in 1945 — 80 years ago. The typical Shaun alive today was born around 1970, making them about 55 years old. About 2,900 people named Shaun are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Shaun most popular?
Shaun peaked in 1966, reaching #890 nationally. See the whole 1966 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Jehan to Shaun
The story of Shaun
The American peak has a very clear cause. A teen idol of the late nineteen-seventies, a singer and television actor with this exact spelling, was on magazine covers and at the top of the charts for a couple of years; the name reached its highest point in the American record within a year of that. Before him the spelling was in use but modest, and Shawn — the fully anglicized version, with the w that English uses for that sound — was well ahead of it. Afterwards, for a decade, they ran level. It is one of the tidier examples of a single person moving a spelling rather than a name.
Meaning
God has been gracious
The Irish Sean is the Irish form of John, and carries John's meaning unchanged through Norman French. None of the English spellings alters it.
How the name formed
- Jehan
- Sean
- Shaun
Related forms: Sean · John · Seathan
Pronouncing Shaun
SHAWN
One syllable, rhyming with lawn. Shane, the northern Irish pronunciation of the same name, rhymes with rain instead.
Nicknames for Shaun
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
- 1945
- Most girls named
- 1970138 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #890reached in 1966
- Change vs 2021
- −33.3%6 in 2022, from 9
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.
Shaun in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Sean in Irish — same name
- John in English — related form
- Seathan in Scottish Gaelic — related form
Shauns among us
people named Shaun 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
Shaun 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
- One syllable, five letters, and no possible mispronunciation.
- It is a genuine Irish name rather than an American invention.
- It is recognized across Britain, Ireland, Australia and North America.
- It works well in front of long surnames, where fuller names get crowded.
- Shawn, Sean and Shaun are three spellings of one name and all will be written for you.
- The spelling is recorded for a small number of girls, though it reads overwhelmingly as a boy's name.
- It is strongly associated with the nineteen-seventies and eighties in America.
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What they receive
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Shaun
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Shauns are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,900 people named Shaun are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Shaun in 2025?
- Shaun is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Shaun with classmates?
- Shaun 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 Shaun? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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