Humanverse

Shannon vs Sharia

American parents have registered 348,161 Shannons since 1880, against 653 Sharias. Shannon is still ahead, with 116 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Shannon against Sharia, 1880 to 2025 0 5k 10k 15k 20k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Shannon Sharia

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

Shannon has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1881 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2020, when Shannon had 168 and Sharia had 5.

Side by side

  Shannon Sharia
Total US births 348,161653
Most in one year 16,11832
Babies in 2025 116under 5
Estimated living today 326,000630
Median age today 4737
Peak year 19701977
Best rank 22nd girls2,606th girls
Rank in 2025 2,387thunranked
First recorded 18811950
Girls / boys 295,782 / 52,379653 / 0

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 Shannons alive today are over 47; half the Sharias are over 37. That is 10 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Shannon Sharia
England and Wales 25,5989

Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

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