Name Awesome

Shannah

Girls' name

Variant of Shanna

Shannah has been given to 1,378 babies in the U.S. since 1945. 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 1978, with 51 recorded.

Babies named Shannah, 2014

1 in 530,000

Shannah over time, 1880–2025

Girls
020406018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Shannah: meaning, origin, and history

Variant of Shanna

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Shannah means

Shannah is a variant of Shanna.

Documented naming usage and pronunciation

Shannah is used in English (Rare).

Another recorded pronunciation is /ˈʃæn.ə/ for Shannah.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Shanna.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 1,378 girls were recorded with the name Shannah between 1945 and 2014. Its highest annual count was 51 in 1978; its best national rank was #1,932 in 1978.

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 Shannah?

Shannah had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2014, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2014
1 in 530,000
7 of 3,706,812 births
Among girls only
1 in 255,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2014
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
367,053 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Shannah 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 2014 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 367,053 children born in 2014 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Shannah. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Shannahs were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Shannah was born before 1985 — so the typical Shannah is around 40 today.

Median birth year
1985
About 40 years old
Biggest decade
1980s
27.7% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
38.3%
Spread across generations
Recorded since 1950
1,372
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1980s — 27.7% of all recorded uses (382).

Is Shannah 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 1978 (51)
Years since peak
47
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
32.2% average annual change
Best rank ever
#1,932
1978

Spellings of Shannah

Shannah is not the most common spelling — Hannah is, with 36.8% against Shannah's 0.11%.

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 Shannah is used

Across 1910–2025, Shannah was most concentrated in California — about 1 in — girls, against 1 in 563,761 across all states with data. It was least common in Texas (1 in —).

00 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1California1 in —
  2. 2Florida1 in —
  3. 3Georgia1 in —
  4. 4Massachusetts1 in —
  5. 5New York1 in —
  6. 6Texas1 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. Shannah has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Shannah around the world

Where Shannah 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
    1996–2010
    #5,707
    in 2010
  • Scotland
    1996–2006
    #722
    in 2006
  • France
    1997–2021
    #6,146
    in 2021
  • Canada
    1991–2022
    #3,322
    in 2022
  • South Australia
    1974–2011
    #840
    in 2011

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.

Shannah 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
#1,932
1978
Peak year
1978
51 that year
First recorded
1945
Last recorded
2014
All-time count
1,378
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Shannah

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

ShanahShaynahShamiraShantalShaylinShaniahShaylynShakinahShamayaShaindyShanayaShalayaShalomShalonShaelynShaelaShantiShawnahShayleneSharayaShaelynnShaindelShamyaShanell

Sibling names for Shannah

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 Shannah

Top names of 1978, Shannah's peak yearThe 1970s in fullOther names that peaked in 1978Girls' names starting with S