Shadow
Shadow reached its high-water mark in 1993 at number 2,162, and has been recorded 1,104 times in all. It is given to both boys and girls. In 2025 it ranked 5,861st. About 1,100 Shadows are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 27.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Shadow boys named Shadow
Girls and boys called Shadow
years more girls than boys years more boys than girls
Shadow crossed from girls to boys in 1989, and has stayed there for 16 of the years counted since. At its furthest it was 69% boys, and in 2022 it was 58%.
The girls’ share of each year’s babies of the name, in the 17 years in which at least 25 babies got it. The line touches the middle more often than there are crossings marked: a year or two on the other side is not a name changing hands, and only a move that holds for 5 counted years and reaches 60/40 is recorded as one. All 581 names that changed sex.
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 1,104
- Estimated living today
- 1,100
- Median age today
- 27
- Peak year
- 1993
- Best rank
- 2,162nd
- Rank in 2025
- 5,861st
- First recorded
- 1974
- Girls / boys
- 491 / 613
How old the living Shadows are
born that year still alive today
Of the 1,104 babies given the name since 1974, about 1,100 are alive — 98 in every hundred. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1998 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 Shadow is most common
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1993
The most popular boys’ names the year Shadow peaked:
Related names
Shadow against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
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.