Shah

surname · Latin script

Meaning: A king of Persia or Iran

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

/ʃɑː/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Shah is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Pakistan than in any other country, where it is the 6th most common surname.

rarermore common
  • PKPakistan≈1 in 160(inferred from the name graph)
  • MYMalaysia≈1 in 950
  • GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 2.6K

carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Shah itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

Pakistan (inferred from the name graph)

≈1,500,000 people, est.

#418 (measured from records)

of 19M surnames

Sources
469 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 160 (inferred from the name graph)

Pakistan, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

A king of Persia or Iran.

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested across 10 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Shah counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.

Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.

Where Shah is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
PK Pakistan#6≈1,500,000 est.≈1 in 160—Shah183
IN India#108194,8341 in 6.8K195KShah337
US United States—160,400as Shaw1 in 2.1K160KShah469
MY Malaysia#423≈34,000 est.≈1 in 950—Shah89
GB United Kingdom#548≈26,000 est.≈1 in 2.6K86KShah267
AE United Arab Emirates#493≈24,000 est.≈1 in 424—Shah3
GY Guyana—499as Shaw1 in 1.5K499——

Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.

Registers cited: Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025. Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).

Other names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Shah is also recorded as 7 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • English surname64 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, India, United Kingdom, Australia

    Languages: English, German, Dutch

    Also written Shaeh, Shâh, Shãh, Šhãh, Shäh

  • a separate name4 spellings in the group

    Also written Shāh, Shâh, Shaḣ

  • Bangla surname38 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Malaysia

    Languages: Bangla, Odia

    Also written Shaha, শাহ, শাহ্, Shaah, Shaho

  • Malay surname6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Malaysia, India, Indonesia, Pakistan

    Languages: Malay, Indonesian

    Also written Shåh, Shāh, Şhah, Šĥåh

  • Spanish surname37 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, France, India, United Kingdom

    Languages: Spanish, French, Portuguese

    Also written Shâh, Şhąh, Šhah, Sȟäȟ, Shåh

  • Arabic surname9 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, Kuwait

    Also written Shãh, Shāh, Šhäh, Shâh, Šhâh

  • Chinese surname15 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, United Kingdom, United States, Malaysia

    Also written Shåh, Shâh, Shāh, Šhãh, Šhåh

77 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Shah is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In English, (i) Muslim name from Persian shah ‘king’; (ii) Hindu and Jain name from Gujarati sah ‘merchant’.

    as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]

  • In Arabic, king, emperor

    as a nameAfrican Muslim Names

  • In Arabic, king

    as a nameAfrican Muslim Names

  • Abdali.

    as a nameMuslim baby names (our 2,000 meaningful and beautiful names for boys and girls) English-Urdu with Roman

  • In Arabic, (shaah) (abbreviation: Shah «+°*"*): king, emperor. "[A] title assumed by fakirs."*“? Originally, the royal title of the kings of the Pahlavi dynasty (1925-1979).*°° Shah Abbas: see Abbas. Shah Waliullah: see Wali

    as a nameA Dictionary of Muslim Names

Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.

Notable people with this name(measured from records)

12001400160018002000Miran Shah, b. 1366Jahandar Shah, b. 1661Adil Shah, b. 1719Prithvi Narayan Shah, b. 1723Ahmad Shah Bahadur, b. 1725Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev, b. 1945Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev, b. 1947Naseeruddin Shah, b. 1950Amit Shah, b. 1964Balendra Shah, b. 1990

The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).

How to address them(machine-generated)

Formalआदरणीय श्री Shah जी,Respected Shah ji, (English)
Informalनमस्ते Shah जी,Hi Shah, (English)

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 69 sources across 35 countries.

Official registers attesting Shah
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
IN IndiaInstate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls—195K#110
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020202077K#413
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010201058K#573
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000200038K#831
GY GuyanaGuyana — Official List of Electors July 2025202576#549

Reference works 7

  • The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
  • Wikipedia surname tokens
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
  • jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
  • Ethiopian name tokens (GitHub lehagere/ethiopian-names, 40/60 condominium list)

These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.

Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.

Frequently asked questions

What are other forms of the name Shah?
In the etymology graph, Schah is a form of the same name in other languages.
What does the name Shah mean, and where does it come from?
A king of Persia or Iran. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
How do you pronounce Shah?
A machine transcription gives /ʃɑː/ (IPA) for Hindi.
In which country does Shah have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 1.5 million people named Shah in Pakistan, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled shah.
How common is the name Shah?
In India, the national register counted 194,834 people named Shah, about 1 in 6.8 thousand residents.
How common is Shah compared with other names?
In Pakistan, Shah is the 6th most common surname of 51,489 surnames recorded there.

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/shah

The payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.

About this data

measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated

These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.

Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.

Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.

Cite this page Mondonomo, “Shah” — the 6th most common surname in Pakistan. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Shah parses inside a full name →