Shaye
Feminine · “Hebrew Yeshayahu”
Shaye is given to both — 2,188 girls and 674 boys since 1880. See Shaye as a boy nameSee other names given to both
Shaye is an American girl's name and a Yiddish man's name at once. In Ashkenazi use Shaye is Isaiah, worn down from Yeshayahu through centuries of daily speech, and the two have nothing to do with each other.
How old is the name Shaye?
Shaye first appears in US birth records in 1951 — 74 years ago. The typical Shaye alive today was born around 1998, making them about 27 years old. About 2,100 people named Shaye are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Shaye most popular?
Shaye peaked in 1998, reaching #1359 nationally. Today it ranks #10107, 8,748 places below that high. See the whole 1998 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Yeshayahu to Shaye
The story of Shaye
Yiddish reshaped the Hebrew name stock thoroughly, and the reshaping was phonetic rather than decorative: Yeshayahu became Shaye, Yaakov became Yankev and then Yankel, Yitzhak became Itzik, Moshe became Moyshe. Names were being used every day in a spoken language, and they wore down the way spoken words do. Shaye is one of the smoothest results, two sounds where the Hebrew has five syllables. Meanwhile, entirely separately, American parents in the 1990s were writing Shay, Shea and Shaye for a name that came out of Irish surnames, and the two traditions collided on one spelling in the same records. Nothing connects them except that both languages liked the same small sound.
Meaningscholars disagree
Hebrew Yeshayahu, Yah is salvation
As a Yiddish name, Shaye is a familiar form of Yeshayahu, Isaiah, meaning Yah is salvation. As a modern American female name it is a spelling of Shay or Shea, from the Irish surname O Seaghdha. The two are unrelated and share only a sound. The American female peak is 1998.
How the name formed
- Yeshayahu
- Shaye
Related forms: Shaye · Shay · Shea
Pronouncing Shaye
SHAY
One syllable. The final e is silent and functions as a marker rather than a sound; Shay, Shea and Shaye are homophones.
Nicknames for Shaye
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
- 1951
- Most girls named
- 1998128 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1359reached in 1998
- Change vs 2024
- +80.0%9 in 2025, from 5
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.
Shaye in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Shaye in Yiddish — related form
- Shay in English — spelling variant
- Shea in English — spelling variant
Shayes among us
people named Shaye are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 178,585 born in 2025 was named Shaye
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 Tammye test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Shaye's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Tammye climbed just as high around 1962, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Tammye's path sketches the road Shaye is walking now.
Shaye 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
Shaye beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Shaye in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- One syllable, easy to say and impossible to mispronounce.
- It works for either sex and in several traditions.
- It pairs cleanly with long surnames.
- Three spellings compete and none is standard.
- The final e adds a letter and no sound.
- It is very short, and some settings will expect more.
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What they receive
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Shaye
Feminine · #10107 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Shayes are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,100 people named Shaye are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Shaye in 2025?
- Shaye ranks #10107 among US girl names in 2025, with 9 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Shaye?
- About 1 in every 178,585 US girls born in 2025 was named Shaye — 9 in all.
- Will my child share the name Shaye with classmates?
- Shaye will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Shaye
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Berta#10107 · Jettie#10107 · Maye#10107 · Osa#10107 · Fidelia#10107 · Alysa#10107 · Su#10107 · Willie#10107
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Shaye? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Shaye and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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