Shawn
Masculine · “Yahweh is gracious”
Shawn is given to both — 306,542 boys and 33,055 girls since 1880. See Shawn as a girl nameSee other names given to both
Shawn is what happened when English speakers heard the Irish Seán and simply wrote down the sound. Behind that one open syllable stands one of the oldest continuously used names in the West — Yochanan, Iohannes, Jean, Juan, John — worn down over two thousand years to a single vowel that rhymes with dawn.
How old is the name Shawn?
Shawn first appears in US birth records in 1931 — 94 years ago. The typical Shawn alive today was born around 1979, making them about 46 years old. About 282,000 people named Shawn are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Shawn most popular?
Shawn peaked in 1973, reaching #27 nationally. Today it ranks #681, 654 places below that high. See the whole 1973 chart.
Where it comes from
From Yochanan to Shawn
The story of Shawn
The line begins with the Hebrew Yochanan, which passed into Greek and Latin as Iohannes and from there into every language of Christian Europe. Norman French carried it to Ireland as Jehan after the twelfth century, and Irish speakers reshaped it as Seán, using the spelling rules of their own language. When Irish families settled in America, English speakers who had never read Irish orthography wrote the name the way it sounded to them — Shawn, and its close cousin Shaun. So the spelling is American and phonetic, while the name inside it is very old.
Meaning
"Yahweh is gracious"
The meaning belongs to the Hebrew original, Yochanan; Shawn inherits it through Seán, the Irish form of John.
How the name formed
- Yochanan
- Iohannes
- Jehan
- Seán
- Shawn
Related forms: Seán · Sean · Shaun · Jean · Juan · Giovanni
Pronouncing Shawn
SHAWN
One syllable, rhyming with dawn and lawn. In much of the western and midwestern United States, where the cot–caught vowels have merged, it comes out closer to SHAHN. Sean and Shaun are pronounced identically.
Nicknames for Shawn
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
- 1931
- Most boys named
- 197411,438 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #27reached in 1973
- Change vs 2023
- −8.9%399 in 2025, from 438
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.
Shawn in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Seán in Irish — same name
- Sean in English — spelling variant
- Shaun in English — spelling variant
- Jean in French — related form
- Juan in Spanish — related form
- Giovanni in Italian — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Shawns among us
people named Shawn are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 4,281 born in 2025 was named Shawn
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 Terry test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Shawn's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Terry climbed just as high around 1946, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Terry's path sketches the road Shawn is walking now.
Shawn 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 Shawn is headed
Shawn is easing off slowly — about 18% fewer babies a year by 2030 if the trend continues.
High 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.
Shawn beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Shawn in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- One syllable, one sound, no stress to get wrong — it survives loudspeakers, phone calls and noisy rooms intact.
- The spelling is phonetic in English, so American readers say it correctly on sight, which the Irish spelling Seán does not guarantee.
- It belongs to the largest name family in Europe, so a Juan, a Jean, a Giovanni or a John in the family tree is carrying the same name.
- Well established across adult generations while thin on the ground in classrooms — familiar to everyone, duplicated by almost no one.
- Three spellings compete and all sound the same: Sean, Shaun, Shawn. Expect to spell it aloud fairly often, and expect forms to come back with one of the other two.
- The name rose and fell in a fairly concentrated stretch, so it reads to many Americans as belonging to grown men rather than small boys. A child named Shawn would likely be the only one in class but share the name with plenty of adults.
- There is no real nickname to fall back on — it is already as short as it goes. Some families like that; others miss having a longer formal version in reserve.
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What they receive
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Shawn
Masculine · #681 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Shawns are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 282,000 people named Shawn are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Shawn in 2025?
- Shawn ranks #681 among US boy names in 2025, with 399 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Shawn?
- About 1 in every 4,281 US boys born in 2025 was named Shawn — 399 in all.
- Will my child share the name Shawn with classmates?
- Shawn will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Shawn
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Aurelio#681 · Trevor#679 · Jasiel#683 · Peyton#683 · Salem#679 · Taylor#683 · Gerardo#678 · Omari#686
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Shawn? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Shawn and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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