Shima
Girls' nameMeaning not yet documented
Shima has been given to 111 babies in the U.S. since 1975. 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 8 recorded.
Babies named Shima, 2011
1 in 732,000
Shima over time, 1880–2025
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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.
How common is Shima?
Shima had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2011, the last year it was published.
- Among all babies, 2011
- 1 in 732,000
- 5 of 3,657,935 births
- Among girls only
- 1 in 352,000
- <0.01% of girls
- Rank, 2011
- Unranked
- Fewer than 5 uses
- Coin-flip room size
- 507,099 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Shima sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 2011 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 507,099 children born in 2011 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Shima. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Shimas were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Shima was born before 1991 — so the typical Shima is around 34 today.
- Biggest decade
- 1980s
- 34.2% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 73.0%
- A modern name
- Recorded since 1950
- 111
- People you could plausibly meet
1980s — 34.2% of all recorded uses (38).
Is Shima 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 (8)
- Years since peak
- 46
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Shifting
- 16.6% average annual change
Spellings of Shima
Shima is not the most common spelling — Sheila is, with 53.8% against Shima's 0.03%.
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 Shima is used
Across 1910–2025, Shima was most concentrated in New York — about 1 in — girls, against 1 in 2,501,280 across all states with data.
Most concentrated
- 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. Shima has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.
Shima around the world
Where Shima 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 & Wales1996–2008#5,545in 2008
- France2000–2023#6,493in 2023
- Canada1993–2021#3,354in 2021
Popularity data from Office for National Statistics, Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques and Statistics Canada. ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. StatCan data under Statistics Canada Open Licence.
Shima by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
Names similar to Shima
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Shima
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.