Shlok
Masculine · “a verse”
Shlok is a unit of poetry. The shloka is the verse form the Mahabharata and the Ramayana are written in — two lines of sixteen syllables — and it is the meter in which a very large share of Sanskrit literature was composed and memorised.
How old is the name Shlok?
Shlok first appears in US birth records in 2001 — 24 years ago. The typical Shlok is a kid of about 9 — this name's wave is very recent. About 1,100 people named Shlok are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Shlok most popular?
Shlok peaked in 2014, reaching #1959 nationally. Today it ranks #2765, 806 places below that high. See the whole 2014 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From shloka to Shlok
The story of Shlok
The shloka is the workhorse meter of Sanskrit: flexible enough to carry narrative for a hundred thousand verses and regular enough to be memorised and passed on for centuries without writing. The great epics use it, as do the law books and much of the philosophical literature. Naming a child for the verse form itself is modern, and it belongs to the broader Indian practice of giving children words from the classical vocabulary — Ved, Mantra, Shlok, Kavya — rather than names of people. It reaches United States records with Indian families.
Meaning
a verse; also fame, praise, a hymn
Sanskrit shloka means a stanza of verse, and beyond that a sound, a call, a hymn of praise and fame itself — the senses are connected, since fame in an oral culture is what gets put into verse and repeated. The reading is documented in the classical dictionaries and is not disputed. Shlok is the modern Hindi form, without the final vowel.
How the name formed
- shloka
- Shlok
Related forms: श्लोक · Shlok · Shlok
Pronouncing Shlok
SHLOHK
One syllable with a long o. The shl- opening does not occur in English and gets simplified to sl- or shel- by speakers meeting it cold; Hindi and Sanskrit run the two consonants together without a vowel between them.
Nicknames for Shlok
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
- 2001
- Most boys named
- 201473 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1959reached in 2014
- Change vs 2024
- −9.8%46 in 2025, from 51
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.
Shlok in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- श्लोक in Sanskrit — transliteration
- Shlok in Hindi — same name
- Shlok in Marathi — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, New Jersey, Texas.
Shloks among us
people named Shlok are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 37,132 born in 2025 was named Shlok
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 Garlin test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Shlok's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Garlin climbed just as high around 1939, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Garlin's path sketches the road Shlok is walking now.
Shlok 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 Shlok is headed
Shlok should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
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.
Shlok beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Shlok in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- An exact meaning tied to a real and important literary form rather than a vague quality.
- One syllable and five letters, which pairs cleanly with a long surname.
- Widely understood across India, where the word is part of ordinary vocabulary.
- The shl- cluster is genuinely difficult for English speakers and will be broken into two syllables.
- There is no natural short form, so the whole name carries every use.
- Its meaning is transparent in India and entirely opaque elsewhere, which cuts both ways.
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What they receive
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Shlok
Masculine · #2765 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Shloks are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,100 people named Shlok are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Shlok in 2025?
- Shlok ranks #2765 among US boy names in 2025, with 46 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Shlok?
- About 1 in every 37,132 US boys born in 2025 was named Shlok — 46 in all.
- Will my child share the name Shlok with classmates?
- Shlok will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Shlok
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Stephon#2765 · Jafet#2765 · Dwight#2765 · Sheldon#2765 · Mills#2765 · Asante#2765 · Arlin#2765 · Yandel#2765
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Shlok? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Shlok 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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