Shem
Masculine · “Hebrew "name”
Shem is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 750 boys against 5 girls since 1880.
Shem means name in Hebrew, and his name became the name of a language family. The word Semitic was coined in 1781 from the biblical genealogy — Shem's descendants — and it is still the technical term for Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic and Amharic today.
How old is the name Shem?
Shem first appears in US birth records in 1954 — 71 years ago. The typical Shem alive today was born around 1995, making them about 30 years old. About 700 people named Shem are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Shem most popular?
Shem peaked in 1976, reaching #2054 nationally. Today it ranks #7679, 5,625 places below that high. See the whole 1976 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From shem to Shem
The story of Shem
Eighteenth-century scholars noticed that Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic and Ethiopic were related and needed a label for the group. Schlözer took it from Genesis, where the peoples of the region are traced to Shem, and the term stuck; Hamitic and Japhetic were coined alongside it from Noah's other sons and have since been abandoned as classifications, because they did not correspond to real language families. Semitic did, and remains standard. The nineteenth-century coinage antisemitism, from the same root, was a euphemism invented to make prejudice sound scientific, and it has never actually meant hostility to speakers of Semitic languages. The American figures for Shem peak in 1976.
Meaning
Hebrew "name"
From shem, a name or reputation — the ordinary Hebrew word, as in the phrase ha-Shem, the Name, used to avoid pronouncing the divine name. Shem is the eldest son of Noah in Genesis. The term Semitic was formed from his name by the German historian August Ludwig von Schlözer in 1781, on the basis of the table of nations in Genesis 10.
How the name formed
- shem
- Shem
Related forms: שם · Sam · Σήμ
Pronouncing Shem
shem
One syllable, rhyming with hem. Hebrew says the same, with a slightly more open vowel.
Nicknames for Shem
Limited
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
- 1954
- Most boys named
- 197623 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2054reached in 1976
- Change vs 2024
- −23.1%10 in 2025, from 13
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.
Shem in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- שם in Hebrew — transliteration
- Sam in Arabic — same name
- Σήμ in Greek — same name
Shems among us
people named Shem are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 170,808 born in 2025 was named Shem
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 Barkley test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Shem's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Barkley climbed just as high around 1951, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Barkley's path sketches the road Shem is walking now.
Shem 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
Shem beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Shem in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The meaning is settled and unusually neat: the name means name.
- One syllable and four letters, easy to say and spell.
- It is a genuine biblical name rather than a modern coinage.
- It is very short and may be taken for a clipping.
- The connection to the term Semitic is not obvious and needs explaining.
- It is rare in America and unfamiliar to most people.
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What they receive
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Shem
Masculine · #7679 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Shems are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 700 people named Shem are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Shem in 2025?
- Shem ranks #7679 among US boy names in 2025, with 10 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Shem?
- About 1 in every 170,808 US boys born in 2025 was named Shem — 10 in all.
- Will my child share the name Shem with classmates?
- Shem will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Shem
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Early#7679 · Obie#7679 · Huston#7679 · Knute#7679 · Rance#7679 · Blain#7679 · Doyle#7679 · Millard#7679
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Shem? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Shem and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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