Humanverse

Shantavia vs Shawna

American parents have registered 45,640 Shawnas since 1880, against 679 Shantavias. Shawna is still ahead, with 9 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Shantavia against Shawna, 1880 to 2025 0 600 1.2k 1.8k 2.4k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Shantavia Shawna

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

Shawna has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1941 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2008, when Shantavia had 11 and Shawna had 121.

Side by side

  Shantavia Shawna
Total US births 67945,640
Most in one year 532,090
Babies in 2025 under 59
Estimated living today 66043,000
Median age today 3345
Peak year 19921977
Best rank 2,433rd girls139th girls
Rank in 2025 unranked10,107th
First recorded 19771941
Girls / boys 679 / 045,531 / 109

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 Shawnas alive today are over 45; half the Shantavias are over 33. That is 12 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

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