Humanverse

Shona vs Shourya

American parents have registered 2,414 Shonas since 1880, against 506 Shouryas. But in 2025 it was Shourya that was commoner, 24 babies to fewer than five.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Shona against Shourya, 1880 to 2025 0 40 80 120 160 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Shona Shourya

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

Of the 76 years in which either name was published, Shona for 58 years and Shourya for 18 years. The lead changed hands 3 times.

Side by side

  Shona Shourya
Total US births 2,414506
Most in one year 16048
Babies in 2025 under 524
Estimated living today 2,200500
Median age today 518
Peak year 19702015
Best rank 844th girls2,565th boys
Rank in 2025 unranked4,249th
First recorded 19432005
Girls / boys 2,414 / 00 / 506

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 Shonas alive today are over 51; half the Shouryas are over 8. That is 43 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.

Both names abroad

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

Country Shona Shourya
England and Wales 1,52940

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: Shona and Shourya.