Shona

given name · Latin script

Meaning: Feminine form of John; sometimes found in Ireland

Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

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

Shona is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Nigeria than in any other country. In Türkiye it is the 27th most common surname.

rarermore common
  • NGNigeria≈1 in 297as Sani(inferred from the name graph)
  • TRTürkiye≈1 in 411as Şen
  • ARArgentina1 in 2.7Kas Sena

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 Shona 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.

Nigeria (inferred from the name graph)

≈720,000 named Sani, est.

#345 (measured from records)

of 19M surnames

12 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
459 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 297 (inferred from the name graph)

Nigeria, est., as Sani

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

SoniLatin(measured from records)
СанияCyrillic(measured from records)
선아Hangul(measured from records)
ՍոնաArmenian(measured from records)
สุนาThai(measured from records)
שאנהHebrew(measured from records)
সানBengali(measured from records)
სონაGeorgian(measured from records)
సేనTelugu(measured from records)
ਸੁਨGurmukhi(measured from records)
ΣοναGreek(measured from records)
සේනSinhala(measured from records)

20 other spellings are counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Sana in PK Pakistan, MA Morocco, Sani in NG Nigeria, ID Indonesia, Soni in IN India and Şen in TR Türkiye.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

Feminine form of John; sometimes found in Ireland.

Sources 1

  • Irish first names

Attested across 27 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Shona 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 Shona is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
NG Nigeria—≈720,000 est.≈1 in 297listedSani63
IN India#78218,303as Sen1 in 6.1K218KSoni293
TR Türkiye#27≈200,000 est.≈1 in 411#94Şen125
PK Pakistan#597≈33,000 est.≈1 in 7KlistedSana133
ID Indonesia—≈32,000 est.≈1 in 8.2KlistedSani151
AR Argentina—16,831as Sena1 in 2.7K17KJona39
MA Morocco—≈7,300 est.≈1 in 4.8KlistedSana96
FI Finland—3,007as Suni1 in 1.9K26KSanna10

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; DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national). 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)

Shona is also recorded as 3 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • French given name4 spellings in the group

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

    Languages: French, Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Shönå

  • a separate name2 spellings in the group

    Also written Shóna

  • Hebrew given name8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Israel, United States, United Kingdom, Canada

    Also written שונה, Shauna, שאונה, Shone, Shuna

55 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)

Shona 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.

  • Scottish: Anglicized form of Gaelic Seonag or Seonaid, Gaelic versions of dJoan and pJanet respectively. In America it is pronounced identically with pShauna, and may be used as a variant spelling of that name. It has also become popular as a Black name, probably in part because it is spelled the same as the name of a central African people. Compare Zula for a similar formation.

    as a nameA concise dictionary of first names

  • In English, A language spoken in Zimbabwe and Mozambique.

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In French, Féminin de Sean, forme irlandaise de Jean; origine hébraïque via Jean, « Dieu a fait grâce ».

    as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)

  • In English, Gaélique/anglais, forme apparentée à Joan; hébreu « Dieu fait grâce ».

    as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)

  • In English, lang., southern Africa

    as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper 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)

1900195020002050Shona Auerbach, b. 1901Jamie S. Gorelick, b. 1950Shona Robison, b. 1966Shona Heath, b. 1974Shona Thorburn, b. 1982Shona Rubens, b. 1986Shona McGarty, b. 1991Shona McCallin, b. 1992Shona Campbell, b. 2001

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)

InformalHi Shona,

A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 42 sources across 26 countries.

Official registers attesting Shona
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
IN IndiaInstate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls—45#6,425
FI FinlandDVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup)—30#14,082
FI FinlandDVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup)—30#13,583
IN Indianaampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls)20151—
IN Indianaampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls)20131—

Reference works 2

  • Wikipedia given-name tokens
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)

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 does the name Shona mean, and where does it come from?
Feminine form of John; sometimes found in Ireland. Recorded by Irish first names.
How do you pronounce Shona?
A machine transcription gives /ˈʃoʊnə/ (IPA) for English.
Is Shona a male or female name?
Shona is recorded for both men and women. We don't publish a percentage split: a record's gender belongs to the person and is attached to every given name on that record, so names in cultures where a name string also carries a parent's or spouse's given name pick up large cross-gender counts.
What are other forms of the name Shona?
In the etymology graph, Jean, Jane and Janet are forms of the same name in other languages; Seònaid is a recorded short or pet form.
In which country does Shona have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 721 thousand people named Sani in Nigeria, more than in any other country we hold.
How common is the name Shona?
In India, the national register counted 218,303 people named Sen, about 1 in 6.1 thousand residents.
How common is Shona compared with other names?
In Türkiye, Shona is the 27th most common surname of 619,652 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Shona?

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

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, “Shona” — the 27th most common surname in Türkiye. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Shona parses inside a full name →