Shauna
Feminine · “God is gracious”
Shauna is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 28,071 girls against 50 boys since 1880.
Shauna is Irish John made feminine on American paper. Seán is the Irish form; Shaun is what English speakers wrote when they heard it; Shauna adds the Latin ending English uses to make a feminine.
How old is the name Shauna?
Shauna first appears in US birth records in 1938 — 87 years ago. The typical Shauna alive today was born around 1979, making them about 46 years old. About 26,500 people named Shauna are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Shauna most popular?
Shauna peaked in 1979, reaching #189 nationally. Today it ranks #8860, 8,671 places below that high. See the whole 1979 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Yohanan to Shauna
The story of Shauna
Norman French brought Jean to Ireland, where it became Seán. Emigration carried it to America, and English speakers respelled it phonetically as Shaun and Shawn. Families then built feminines on both spellings — Shauna, Shawna, Shanna, Seana — the ordinary American practice with any popular masculine name. Shauna rose through the 1960s and 1970s and peaked at the end of the 1970s, a step behind Shawna.
Meaning
God is gracious
Through Seán, the Irish form of the French Jean and so of the Latin Johannes, from the Hebrew Yohanan — 'the Lord is gracious'. The -a ending carries no meaning of its own; it is simply how English makes a feminine of a masculine name.
How the name formed
- Yohanan
- Seán
- Shaun
- Shauna
Related forms: Seána · Shawna · Jeanne
Pronouncing Shauna
SHAW-nuh
Two syllables, stress on the first. Shauna and Shawna are said identically; the spelling is the only difference.
Nicknames for Shauna
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
- 1938
- Most girls named
- 19791,403 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #189reached in 1979
- Change vs 2023
- −26.7%11 in 2025, from 15
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.
Shauna in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Seána in Irish — related form
- Shawna in English — spelling variant
- Jeanne in French — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California.
Shaunas among us
people named Shauna are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 146,115 born in 2025 was named Shauna
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 Lana test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Shauna's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Lana climbed just as high around 1948, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Lana's path sketches the road Shauna is walking now.
Shauna 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
Shauna beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Shauna in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It reaches the largest name family in Europe by a genuinely Irish route.
- The au spelling is closer to the Irish orthography than the aw one.
- Two soft syllables with no pronunciation risk.
- Shawna is commoner in American records and will often be assumed.
- It is closely dated to the 1970s and 1980s.
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What they receive
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Shauna
Feminine · #8860 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Shaunas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 26,500 people named Shauna are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Shauna in 2025?
- Shauna ranks #8860 among US girl names in 2025, with 11 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Shauna?
- About 1 in every 146,115 US girls born in 2025 was named Shauna — 11 in all.
- Will my child share the name Shauna with classmates?
- Shauna will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Shauna
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Lida#8860 · Lauretta#8860 · Dot#8860 · Bonita#8860 · Benita#8860 · Trixie#8860 · Adna#8860 · Sue#8860
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Shauna? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Shauna and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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