Shaunna
Feminine · “God has been gracious”
Shaunna keeps the au that marks the Irish and doubles the n as well, which makes it the most heavily written spelling in a large family. Both decisions are doing real work: the au points back to the source, and the doubled n fixes the vowel in front of it.
How old is the name Shaunna?
Shaunna first appears in US birth records in 1948 — 77 years ago. The typical Shaunna alive today was born around 1981, making them about 44 years old. About 2,800 people named Shaunna are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Shaunna most popular?
Shaunna peaked in 1978, reaching #858 nationally. See the whole 1978 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Sean to Shaunna
The story of Shaunna
This name is a feminine of a name that was already an anglicization, which is worth noticing because it means the Irish had nothing to do with it. Ireland had its own women's name from the same source and had had it for centuries; what English speakers did instead was take the anglicized man's name, add an ending, and produce something new. That is why Shaunna and its relatives have no Irish equivalent to point at — they are not respellings of an Irish name but English constructions on an English base, and the au they carry is the only Irish thing about them.
Meaning
God has been gracious
The name is a feminine built on the Irish form of John, which was itself an anglicization of a Norman French form. It carries John's meaning at three removes and unchanged.
How the name formed
- Sean
- Shaun
- Shaunna
Related forms: Siobhan
Pronouncing Shaunna
SHAWN-uh
Two syllables with the weight at the front. The doubled n keeps the preceding vowel short, and every spelling in this family is said the same way.
Nicknames for Shaunna
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
- 1948
- Most girls named
- 1978171 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #858reached in 1978
- Change vs 2013
- −28.6%5 in 2016, 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.
Shaunna in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Siobhan in Irish — related form
Shaunnas among us
people named Shaunna 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
Shaunna 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
- The doubled consonant removes a real ambiguity about the first vowel.
- Every sound in it is easy for an English speaker.
- It is longer and more distinctive on the page than most of its family.
- Shauna, Shawna, Shonna and Shaunna are four spellings of one sound and all will be offered.
- It has no Irish equivalent, so an Irish speaker will not recognize it as an Irish name.
- It reads clearly as a name of the second half of the twentieth century.
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Shaunna
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Shaunnas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,800 people named Shaunna are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Shaunna in 2025?
- Shaunna is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Shaunna with classmates?
- Shaunna will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More S names
The most-given names starting with S, all years combined.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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