Sian
Sian reached its high-water mark in 2006 at number 4,165, and has been recorded 1,030 times in all. It is given to both boys and girls. In 2025 it ranked 14,942nd. About 1,000 Sians are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 23.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Sian boys named Sian
Girls and boys called Sian
years more girls than boys years more boys than girls
Both, throughout, without either side ever taking it over: 858 girls and 172 boys in all, and in 2025 the split was 5 to 26.
The girls’ share of each year’s babies of the name, in the 11 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
- 1,030
- Estimated living today
- 1,000
- Median age today
- 23
- Peak year
- 2006
- Best rank
- 4,165th
- Rank in 2025
- 14,942nd
- First recorded
- 1962
- Girls / boys
- 858 / 172
How old the living Sians are
born that year still alive today
Of the 1,030 babies given the name since 1962, about 1,000 are alive — 98 in every hundred. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2002 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 the name comes from
Origin Welsh, from Hebrew
An anglicization of Welsh Siân, ultimately from Latin Joanna, from Koine Greek Ἰωάννα, from Hebrew יוֹחָנָה, the feminized form of יְהוֹחָנָן which produced John and its many doublets.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Sians
- Siân Phillips (born 1933)British Actress
- Siân Héder (born 1977)American writer and filmmaker
- Siân Brooke (born 1980)British actress
- Sian Proctor (born 1970)African American explorer, scientist, STEM communicator
- Siân Berry (born 1974)British politician
- Sian Elias (born 1949)New Zealand judge, and 12th Chief Justice of New Zealand
- Sian Barbara Allen (1946–2025)American actress
- Sian Clifford (born 1982)English actress
People named Sian with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Sian is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Sian is most concentrated in California (7.2×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2006
The most popular girls’ names the year Sian peaked:
Sian elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| England and Wales girls | Sian | 6,024 | 72nd |
| Scotland girls | Sian | 630 | 149th |
| Northern Ireland girls | Sian | 181 | 92nd |
| Ireland girls | Sian | 153 | 345th |
| France girls | Sian | 115 | 2,236th |
| France boys | Sian | 55 | 4,749th |
| Switzerland boys | Sian | 40 | 1,192nd |
| England and Wales boys | Sian | 27 | 3,449th |
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.
Sian: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German boys | Switzerland | Sian | 32 | 0.003% | 763rd |
| French boys | Switzerland | Sian | 5 | 0.001% | 618th |
| Italian boys | Switzerland | Sian | 3 | 0.005% | 128th |
Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.
Sian among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland girls | Sian | — | 5 |
A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Related names
Sian 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.