Shiloh
Masculine · “a place name”
Shiloh is given to both — 9,414 boys and 15,117 girls since 1880. See Shiloh as a girl nameSee other names given to both
Shiloh was a place long before it was a person: a hill town in Ephraim where, in the Hebrew Bible, the Ark of the Covenant rested and Israel gathered to worship before Jerusalem took that role. The two syllables move easily in English — a soft opening and an open vowel at the end — which is part of why the name traveled from map to congregation to child.
How old is the name Shiloh?
Shiloh first appears in US birth records in 1969 — 56 years ago. The typical Shiloh is a kid of about 6 — this name's wave is very recent. About 9,300 people named Shiloh are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Shiloh most popular?
Shiloh peaked in 2025, reaching #278 nationally. Today it ranks #278, exactly where it peaked. See the whole 2025 chart.
Shiloh appears on these lists:
Where it comes from
From שִׁילֹה (Shiloh, Hebrew place name) to Shiloh
The story of Shiloh
In the Hebrew Bible, Shiloh is the sanctuary town in the hill country of Ephraim where the Tabernacle stood and the Ark of the Covenant rested before it moved to Jerusalem; archaeologists place it at Khirbet Seilun, north of Jerusalem. Greek translators rendered it Sēlō and the Latin Vulgate Silo, so the name entered European Bibles as geography rather than as a given name. American settlers carried it onto the landscape, naming churches and settlements Shiloh across the South — one log meeting house in Tennessee gave its name to the battle fought there in 1862. The step from place name to first name is recent and largely American, and from the start it was given to boys and girls alike.
Meaningscholars disagree
a place name, often read as "tranquil" or "place of rest"
The common reading links Shiloh to the Hebrew root shalah, "to be quiet, at ease," giving a sense of rest or tranquility. Hebraists also treat it as an old place name whose origin is simply not recoverable. A separate puzzle sits in Genesis 49:10, "until Shiloh comes," a line read by some traditions as naming the town and by others as a title — that ambiguity is centuries old and has never been resolved.
How the name formed
- שִׁילֹהShiloh, Hebrew place name
- ΣηλώSēlō, Greek Septuagint
- SiloLatin Vulgate
- ShilohEnglish
Related forms: שִׁילֹה · Shilo · Silo · Sēlō · Siló
Pronouncing Shiloh
SHY-loh
Two syllables, stress on the first. The spelling points clearly to this pronunciation for most English speakers. A closer-to-Hebrew shee-LOH is heard occasionally, so it is worth saying aloud which one you mean when you introduce the name.
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
- 1969
- Most boys named
- 20251,220 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #278reached in 2025
- Change vs 2024
- +17.4%1,220 in 2025, from 1,039
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.
Shiloh in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- שִׁילֹה in Hebrew — transliteration
- Shilo in English — spelling variant
- Silo in Latin — related form
- Sēlō in Greek — transliteration
- Siló in Spanish — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, Florida.
Shilohs among us
people named Shiloh are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 1,400 born in 2025 was named Shiloh
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Shiloh
- #278
- Shiloh on the 2025 chart
- #247
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Shiloh went to 1,220 boys in 2025, but Shilo, 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 — 31 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 1,400 for Shiloh 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 Elton test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Shiloh's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Elton climbed just as high around 1915, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Elton's path sketches the road Shiloh is walking now.
Shiloh 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 Shiloh is headed
Shiloh looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 50% more babies a year by 2030 if the current curve holds.
Medium 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.
Shiloh beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Shiloh in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The spelling is already familiar from the Bible and from American maps, so most people read it correctly at first sight.
- One name, one pronunciation: SHY-loh follows straight from the letters.
- Used in near-equal measure for boys and girls, so it needs no adjustment either way.
- Short, two syllables, and easy to say in English, Spanish and most languages a family is likely to use.
- A documented record stretching back to the Hebrew Bible, with a continuous life as a place name in between.
- The boy–girl split is close to even, which means strangers reading the name on a form genuinely cannot tell, and will sometimes guess wrong. Neither side is the minority, but neither is the default either.
- Shiloh in American ears also means the 1862 battle, one of the bloodiest of the Civil War. Some people will mention it; the association is historical rather than unpleasant, and it fades with the generations.
- Nicknames are not obvious. Shy and Lo both get used, and Shy carries a meaning of its own in English that some children would rather not answer to.
- The name's wave is very recent, so a child called Shiloh will likely be the only one in school and will meet few adults who share it — appealing to some parents, less so to others.
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What they receive
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Shiloh
Masculine · #278 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Shilohs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 9,300 people named Shiloh are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Shiloh?
- Shiloh is the most-used spelling in US records — 1,220 of the 1,411 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Shilo, Shylo and Shyloh.
- How popular is the name Shiloh in 2025?
- Shiloh ranks #278 among US boy names in 2025, with 1,220 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Shiloh?
- About 1 in every 1,400 US boys born in 2025 was named Shiloh — 1,220 in all.
- Will my child share the name Shiloh with classmates?
- Shiloh will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Shiloh
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Otto#277 · Benson#279 · Maximiliano#280 · Bodie#275 · Maximus#275 · Atticus#281 · Jensen#282 · Javier#274
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Shiloh? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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