Humanverse

Shad

About 4,831 American babies have been named Shad since 1940, most of them around 1971. In 2025 it ranked 8,243rd. About 4,400 Shads are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 48.

Popularity, 1880–2025

Births per year, 1880 to 2025 0 125 250 375 500 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

boys named Shad

By the numbers

Total US births
4,831
Estimated living today
4,400
Median age today
48
Peak year
1971
Best rank
403rd
Rank in 2025
8,243rd
First recorded
1940

How old the living Shads are

Born with the name each year, and how many of them are alive today, 1880 to 2025 0 125 250 375 500 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

born that year still alive today

Of the 4,831 babies given the name since 1940, about 4,400 are alive — 92 in every hundred. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1977 and half after.

An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.

Where Shad is most common

Relative to how many babies each state records, Shad is most concentrated in Utah (14.0×), Montana (5.4×), Idaho (5.2×), Nebraska (3.9×).

Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.

Names of 1971

The most popular boys’ names the year Shad peaked:

All the names of 1971

Shad elsewhere

CountrySpelling BirthsBest rank
France boys Shad 190 1,733rd
England and Wales boys Shad 170 1,299th

Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.

Related names

Shad against another name

Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.

Compare Shad with a name of your own

Try it on yourself

Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.