Shamir
given name · Latin script
Meaning: The name Shamir has Hebrew origins and can mean 'thorn,' 'flint,' or 'a sharp point,' suggesting strength and resilience
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ʃəˈmɪɹ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Shamir is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Pakistan than in any other country.
- GYGuyana1 in 22K(measured from records)
- BDBangladesh≈1 in 46K
- PKPakistan≈1 in 59K
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.
- Pakistan (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 93 (measured from records)
- 1 in 22K (inferred from the name graph)
≈4,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Guyana
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
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)
The name Shamir has Hebrew origins and can mean 'thorn,' 'flint,' or 'a sharp point,' suggesting strength and resilience. It is also connected to a legendary substance in Jewish tradition, said to be used by King Solomon to build the Temple, giving the name a sense of mystery and power.
Sources 1
- Biblical Names Compiled Database
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Shamir 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.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PK Pakistan | ≈4,000 est. | ≈1 in 59K | listed | Shamir | 22 |
| BD Bangladesh | ≈3,500 est. | ≈1 in 46K | — | Shamir | 31 |
| US United States | 1,441 | 1 in 231K | 1.2K | Shamir | 93 |
| MY Malaysia | ≈380 est. | ≈1 in 87K | — | Shamir | 17 |
| ZA South Africa | ≈200 est. | ≈1 in 285K | — | Shamir | 12 |
| GY Guyana | 34 | 1 in 22K | 34 | — | — |
| GA Gabon | ≈31 est. | ≈1 in 72K | 1 | — | — |
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 — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025; Ministere de l'Interieur — 2025 candidate lists (local + legislative). 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 recorded senses(measured from records)
Shamir is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
The name Shamir (שָׁמִיר) is believed to derive from a Hebrew root meaning 'to keep or guard,' though it is identical to the Hebrew noun for a sharp point, thorn, or a very hard stone like flint or adamant.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
In English, Yitzhak, Israeli prime minister
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In English, Biblical name
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
Clever, skilful,
as a nameDictionary of Islamic 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)
- Moshe Shamirb. 1921ILIsraeli writer (1921-2004)
- Šulamit Šamirováb. 1923ILnot in their usual nameIsraeli activist
- Eli Shamirb. 1934ILcomputer scientist
- Israel Shamirb. 1947SERussian and Israeli journalist, known for denying the Holocaust (born 1947)
- Ephraim Shamirb. 1951ILIsraeli singer and guitarist
- Adi Shamirb. 1952ILIsraeli cryptographer (born 1952)
- Ron Shamirb. 1953ILIsraeli bioinformatician
- Milette Shamirb. 1966ILIsraeli academic administrator and professor of American studies
- Yoav Shamirb. 1970ILIsraeli filmmaker
- Rotem Shamirb. 1977ILIsraeli producer, director and TV screenwriter
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)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 53 sources across 31 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 214 | #86,981 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 200 | #97,359 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 145 | #112,365 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 3
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname 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 Shamir mean, and where does it come from?
- The name Shamir has Hebrew origins and can mean 'thorn,' 'flint,' or 'a sharp point,' suggesting strength and resilience. Recorded by Biblical Names Compiled Database.
- How do you pronounce Shamir?
- A machine transcription gives /ʃəˈmɪɹ/ (IPA) for English.
- Is Shamir a male or female name?
- Shamir is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- In which country does Shamir have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 4.0 thousand people named Shamir in Pakistan, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled shamir.
- Where is Shamir most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Shamir is densest in Guyana — about 1 in 22 thousand people — even though Pakistan holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Shamir?
- In the United States, the national register counted 1,441 people named Shamir in 2020, about 1 in 231 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Shamir?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/shamirThe 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, “Shamir”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.