Humanverse

Shamon vs Shawn

American parents have registered 339,597 Shawns since 1880, against 799 Shamons. Shawn is still ahead, with 412 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Shamon against Shawn, 1880 to 2025 0 4k 8k 12k 16k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Shamon Shawn

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Shawn has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1931 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2020, when Shamon had 10 and Shawn had 670.

Side by side

  Shamon Shawn
Total US births 799339,597
Most in one year 3314,688
Babies in 2025 under 5412
Estimated living today 770310,000
Median age today 3047
Peak year 19981971
Best rank 2,552nd boys28th boys
Rank in 2025 unranked681st
First recorded 19691931
Girls / boys 140 / 65933,055 / 306,542

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Which name is older

Half of the Shawns alive today are over 47; half the Shamons are over 30. That is 17 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Shamon and Shawn.