Shea

Shea is the 1,081st most common surname in the United States, shared by 31,836 people at the 2020 census. That is about one person in 9,389.

By the numbers

People: 31,836
Rank: 1,081st
How common: 1 in 9,389
Per 100,000: 10.7

Where the name comes from

Origin Irish

Anglicised from Irish Ó Séaghdha.

Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Who bears the name

How people with the surname Shea described their own race and Hispanic origin at the 2020 census:

White, not Hispanic 91.6%
Hispanic or Latino 3.6%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 2.4%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 1.6%
Black, not Hispanic 0.6%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.2%

Notable people called Shea

Jack Shea (1910–2002)US speed skater
Brek Shea (born 1990)American soccer player
Jimmy Shea (born 1968)US skeleton racer
John Shea (born 1949)American actor and director
Robert Shea (1933–1994)American novelist and journalist
George Beverly Shea (1909–2013)American gospel singer and hymn composer born in Canada
Carol Shea-Porter (born 1952)American politician
Nicolette Shea (born 1986)American pornographic actress

People named Shea with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).

Surnames like Shea

Also a first name

Shea has been given to 21,102 American babies as a first name since 1950, peaking in 2005. See it as a given name.

Try it on yourself

Source: US Census Bureau, Frequently Occurring Surnames, 2020. The Census describes the file as the surnames borne by 100 or more people; rarer names are not published. The line is not quite exact, and 617 published names come in under it, the smallest at 92 people. Race and Hispanic origin are self-reported. Rates are worked out against the 298.9 million people the file's own figures are calculated on, which is fewer than the census counted in all: the difference is everyone whose surname was too rare to publish.