Deshawna

Girls' name

Modern coinage; no established literal translation

Deshawna has been given to 646 babies in the U.S. since 1969. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 1998, with 28 recorded.

Babies named Deshawna, 2016

1 in 612,000

Deshawna over time, 1880–2025

Girls

Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Deshawna: meaning, origin, and history

Modern coinage; no established literal translation

coinages

What Deshawna means

Deshawna is a modern given name.

Dictionary etymologyReferences, data & attribution

De- + Shawna. African-American coinage with the prefix De

Excerpt from Wiktionary: DeShawna (English) · CC BY-SA 4.0

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Origin, language, and formation

Deshawna is used in English. Its origins include coinages.

Deshawna is a modern formation.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 646 girls were recorded with the name Deshawna between 1969 and 2016. Its highest annual count was 28 in 1998; its best national rank was #4,031 in 1990.

How common is Deshawna?

Deshawna had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2016, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2016: 1 in 612,000; 6 of 3,669,531 births
Among girls only: 1 in 295,000; <0.01% of girls
Rank, 2016: Unranked; Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size: 423,922 kids; Even odds of a second one

Where Deshawna sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Olivia (13,544)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 2016 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%

Class of 30Under 1%

Grade of 100Under 1%

School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 423,922 children born in 2016 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Deshawna. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Deshawnas were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Deshawna was born before 1994 — so the typical Deshawna is around 31 today.

Median birth year: 1994; About 31 years old
Biggest decade: 1990s; 35.6% of all use
Born in the last 25 years: 56.0%; A modern name
Recorded since 1950: 646; People you could plausibly meet

Choose a decade

1990s — 35.6% of all recorded uses (230).

Is Deshawna rising or falling?

Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.

Rank vs 1 year ago: —; Not ranked then
Rank vs 5 years ago: New entry; Not ranked then
Rank vs 10 years ago: —; Not ranked then
Births vs 10 years ago: —; Not published both years
Share of its own peak: 0%; Peak was 1998 (28)
Years since peak: 27; Years
Year-to-year steadiness: Volatile; 38.4% average annual change
Best rank ever: #4,031; 1990

Spellings of Deshawna

Deshawna is not the most common spelling — Shawna is, with 90.0% against Deshawna's 1.3%.

Shawna90.0%45,531
Lashawna3.6%1,802
Deshawn2.3%1,183
Tashawna1.8%899
Deshawna1.3%646
Dashawn1.1%541

Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.

Where Deshawna is used

Across 1910–2025, Deshawna was most concentrated in California — about 1 in — girls, against 1 in 1,331,143 across all states with data. It was least common in Virginia (1 in —).

00 per 100,000

State popularity map

Most concentrated

1California1 in —
2Maryland1 in —
3New York1 in —
4Virginia1 in —

Shading is the share of that state's recorded girls given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings. Deshawna has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Deshawna by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025: Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago: —
Best rank ever: #4,031; 1990
Peak year: 1998; 28 that year
First recorded: 1969
Last recorded: 2016
All-time count: 646
Count in 2025: Under 5

Names similar to Deshawna

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

Destynee Deserae Destanee Despina Destin Desteny Desarae Deshanna Deshonda Destaney Destynie Deshauna Desaree Deseray Destanie Deshayla Deserie Destenie Destyne Destiney Desaray Destyni Destani Deshawn

Sibling names for Deshawna

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

For a sister

Cydney Kalie Reilly Reanna Serina Isela Shae Taya

For a brother

Marquez Ronaldo Tariq Jaren Marshal Samual Jovan Maximillian

Explore around Deshawna

Top names of 1998, Deshawna's peak year The 1990s in full Other names that peaked in 1990 Girls' names starting with D