Shilo
Masculine · Hebrew roots
Shilo is given to both — 1,270 boys and 1,853 girls since 1880. See Shilo as a girl nameSee other names given to both
Shilo is the trimmed spelling of Shiloh, the hill-country town where, in the Hebrew Bible, the Ark of the Covenant rested through the years of the judges, before there was a temple in Jerusalem. Neil Diamond used exactly this five-letter form as a song title in the late 1960s, and the spelling has been in the American record ever since. Two syllables, ending in the same open -oh that Milo and Arlo carry.
How old is the name Shilo?
Shilo first appears in US birth records in 1970 — 55 years ago. The typical Shilo alive today was born around 2007, making them about 18 years old. About 1,200 people named Shilo are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Shilo most popular?
Shilo peaked in 2025, reaching #1341 nationally. Today it ranks #1341, exactly where it peaked. See the whole 2025 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Shiloh (Hebrew biblical place name) to Shilo
The story of Shilo
Shiloh begins as geography: a settlement in the territory of Ephraim, north of Jerusalem, that served as a central sanctuary in the era before the monarchy. It became a personal name in English mainly through Protestant Bible reading, the same current that turned Bethel, Sharon and Zion into names for people. In the United States it picked up a second, heavier layer in 1862, when a small country church in Tennessee named after the biblical site gave its name to one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War. The shortened Shilo, without the final h, arrived later and traveled partly on its own: it is the exact spelling Neil Diamond put on a song in the late 1960s, and it has stayed in the American record since.
Meaningscholars disagree
linked to a Hebrew root for rest or tranquility, though the place name's origin is not settled
The common gloss, 'place of rest' or 'tranquil', connects the name to the Hebrew root shalah, to be at rest. Scholars of the Hebrew Bible have never agreed that this is right; the word may simply be an old place name whose sense was already lost by the time it was written down. A separate line of debate surrounds Genesis 49:10, where the Hebrew shiloh has been read both as a place and as a phrase meaning roughly 'he to whom it belongs' — the reading behind its long messianic interpretation in Christian tradition.
How the name formed
- ShilohHebrew biblical place name
- ShilohEnglish biblical given name
- Shilo
Related forms: Shiloh · שילה (Shilo) · Shylo
Pronouncing Shilo
SHY-loh
Two syllables, stress on the first. Modern Hebrew gives the place name closer to shee-LOH, so speakers who know it from that side may say it differently on first meeting.
Nicknames for Shilo
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
- 1970
- Most boys named
- 2025142 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1341reached in 2025
- Change vs 2024
- +40.6%142 in 2025, from 101
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.
Shilo in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Shiloh in English — spelling variant
- שילה (Shilo) in Hebrew — transliteration
- Shylo in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, Florida.
Shilos among us
people named Shilo are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 12,029 born in 2025 was named Shilo
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Shilo
- #1341
- Shilo on the 2025 chart
- #247
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Shilo went to 142 boys in 2025, but Shiloh, Shylo and Shyloh are the same name said out loud. Together the 4 spellings went to 1,411, which makes it the 247th most-given boys’ name of the year — 1,094 places above the chart.
- Shiloh1,220
- Shilo142
- Shylo27
- Shyloh22
About 1 boy in 1,211 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 12,029 for Shilo itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Ajani test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Shilo's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Ajani climbed just as high around 2003, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Ajani's path sketches the road Shilo is walking now.
Shilo is climbing fast right now. Steep climbs tend to come with steep descents — the quicker a name arrives, the more firmly it belongs to its moment.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Shilo is headed
Shilo is on a steep climb — if the curve holds, 2030 could see around 109% more babies given the name than today. Its history is short or jumpy, though, so read this as a sketch rather than a promise.
Low 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.
Shilo beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Shilo in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Short, phonetic and correctly said by almost anyone after hearing it once — nothing in it invites a wrong stress pattern.
- A documented biblical place name, which gives it a record stretching back thousands of years rather than a recent invention.
- Needs no nickname to work day to day, while still allowing informal clips like Shy or Lo.
- Its -oh ending sits comfortably alongside familiar boys' names like Milo, Arlo and Theo, so it does not stand out as unplaceable.
- Climbing rather than fading, while still rare enough that a child is unlikely to share it in a classroom.
- Shiloh, with the h, is the spelling most Americans know. Expect the h to be added for you on forms and in emails, and expect to spell Shilo out fairly often.
- Shiloh is given to both boys and girls in the United States, and Shilo inherits that. Recorded here as a boy's name, it will still read as unisex to many people — worth knowing rather than worth worrying about.
- For readers who know American history well, the Battle of Shiloh comes to mind first. It is a real association, somber rather than negative, and it fades quickly once there is a child attached to the name.
- Being the only one in a school is a mixed thing: no confusion over surnames, but also a name that has to be introduced and re-introduced for a while.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Shilo
Masculine · Hebrew roots · #1341 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Shilos are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,200 people named Shilo are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Shilo?
- Shilo is one of 4 recorded spellings. Shiloh is the more common one — 1,220 births in 2025 against 142 for Shilo.
- How popular is the name Shilo in 2025?
- Shilo ranks #1341 among US boy names in 2025, with 142 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Shilo?
- About 1 in every 12,029 US boys born in 2025 was named Shilo — 142 in all.
- Will my child share the name Shilo with classmates?
- Shilo will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Shilo
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Hadi#1341 · Benji#1341 · Trent#1341 · Caysen#1339 · Endrick#1339 · Zaiel#1345 · Santiel#1345 · Torin#1347
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Shilo? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Shilo and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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