Şan

surname · Latin script

Meaning: Ün, nam, şöhret

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

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

Şan is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Türkiye than in any other country.

rarermore common
  • TRTürkiye≈1 in 5.6K(inferred from the name graph)
  • CYCyprus≈1 in 19K
  • NONorway1 in 49K

carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

Türkiye (inferred from the name graph)

≈15,000 people, est.

Sources
90 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 5.6K (inferred from the name graph)

Türkiye, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

recorded in Turkish

Ün, nam, şöhret.

Sources 1

  • TDK Kişi Adları Sözlüğü (official Turkish given-name dictionary)

Attested across 25 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Şan 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 Şan is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
TR Türkiye#658≈15,000 est.≈1 in 5.6K—Şan72
US United States—2,7321 in 122K3.9KŞan90
IN India—2971 in 4.5M297—24
AR Argentina—1581 in 288K158——
CH Switzerland—1221 in 69K122Şan5
NO Norway—1121 in 49K112Şan4
FI Finland—781 in 71K93—1
CY Cyprus—≈66 est.≈1 in 19K—Şan5

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: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls; RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup). 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)

Şan is also recorded as 6 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • English surname90 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Caribbean Netherlands

    Languages: English, Dutch, German

    Also written San, Saen, Sän, Sán, Såñ

  • Arabic given name192 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Morocco, Egypt, Sudan, Algeria

    Languages: Arabic, Maltese

    Also written San, Sãn, Sân, Sän, Sàn

  • Bulgarian surname67 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Croatia, Türkiye

    Languages: Bulgarian, Macedonian, Croatian

    Also written San, Сан, Сун, Sann, Šan

  • French given name12 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, Spain, Senegal, Türkiye

    Also written San, Sãn, Sàn, Säñ, San'

  • a separate name15 spellings in the group

    Also written Sãṅ, Sá̄ṅ, Sản, Šan, Sần

  • Urdu surname5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Pakistan, Türkiye

    Also written San, Śãñ, Sãñ, Šàn

25 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)

Şan is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In Kurdish, honeycomb

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

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)

19201940196019802000Ayşe Şan, b. 1938Ahmet Şan, b. 1963İshak Şan, b. 1976Adil Şan, b. 1980Onur Şan, b. 1981Emre Şan, b. 1982
  • Ayşe Şanb. 1938TRTurkish singer of Kurdish ancestry (1938–1996)
  • Ahmet Şanb. 1963TRTurkish businessperson (born 1963)
  • İshak Şanb. 1976TRTurkish researcher
  • Adil Şanb. 1980TRTurkish singer (born 1980)
  • Onur Şanb. 1981TRTurkish actor and singer (born 1981)
  • Emre Şanb. 1982TRTurkish philosopher (born 1982)

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)

FormalDear Colleague,
InformalHello,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 5 sources across 1 country.

Reference works 3

  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
  • 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

How do you pronounce Şan?
A machine transcription gives /ʃan̪/ (IPA) for Turkish.
What does the name Şan mean?
Recorded meaning: Ün, nam, şöhret.
In which country does Şan have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 15 thousand people named Şan in Türkiye, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled şan.
How common is the name Şan?
In the United States, the national register counted 2,732 people named Şan in 2010, about 1 in 122 thousand residents.
How common is Şan compared with other names?
In Türkiye, Şan is the 658th most common surname of 619,652 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Şan?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/%C5%9Fan

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, “Şan” — the 658th most common surname in Türkiye. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Şan parses inside a full name →