Name Awesome

Shama

Girls' name

Lamp, candle

Shama has been given to 451 babies in the U.S. since 1968. 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 1979, with 18 recorded.

Babies named Shama, 2024

1 in 669,000

Shama over time, 1880–2025

Girls
0510152018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Shama: meaning, origin, and history

Lamp, candle

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Shama means

Shama means “lamp, candle”.

Documented naming usage and pronunciation

Shama is used in Hindi, Urdu and Marathi.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 451 girls were recorded with the name Shama between 1968 and 2024. Its highest annual count was 18 in 1979; its best national rank was #3,999 in 1974.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning, origin, and language notes draw on the references below.

American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling. Counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted.

How common is Shama?

Shama had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2024, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2024
1 in 669,000
5 of 3,342,801 births
Among girls only
1 in 324,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2024
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
463,412 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Shama 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 2024 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 463,412 children born in 2024 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Shama. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Shamas were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Shama was born before 1990 — so the typical Shama is around 35 today.

Median birth year
1990
About 35 years old
Biggest decade
1980s
27.7% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
31.7%
Spread across generations
Recorded since 1950
451
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1980s — 27.7% of all recorded uses (125).

Is Shama 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 1979 (18)
Years since peak
46
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
39.7% average annual change
Best rank ever
#3,999
1974

Spellings of Shama

Shama is not the most common spelling — Sara is, with 42.8% against Shama's 0.04%.

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 Shama is used

Across 1910–2025, Shama was most concentrated in New York — about 1 in — girls, against 1 in 1,250,640 across all states with data.

00 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1New York1 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. Shama has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Shama around the world

Where Shama ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.

  • England & Wales
    1996–2022
    #5,670
    in 2022
  • Scotland
    1984–1984
    #547
    in 1984
  • France
    1993–2025
    #2,200
    in 2025
  • Canada
    1998–2024
    #3,027
    in 2024
  • South Australia
    2008–2008
    #796
    in 2008

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics, National Records of Scotland, Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques, Statistics Canada and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). ONS, NRS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. StatCan data under Statistics Canada Open Licence. CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Shama 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
#3,999
1974
Peak year
1979
18 that year
First recorded
1968
Last recorded
2024
All-time count
451
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Shama

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

ShamsShahdShadeShanviShayaShaziaShairaShaimaShahadShadiaShamShaktiSharyShaiaShadaSharayaShayeNaamaSharviAdamaShaelaShanylaShalonShayma

Sibling names for Shama

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

Explore around Shama

Top names of 1979, Shama's peak yearThe 1970s in fullOther names that peaked in 1974Girls' names starting with S