Shamma
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in English: An Ethiopian shawl
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ʃəmmə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Shamma is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Bangladesh than in any other country.
- PKPakistan≈1 in 11Kas Shamim(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 159Kas Shamim
- AEUnited Arab Emirates≈1 in 1K
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 Shamma 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.
- Bangladesh (inferred from the name graph)
- 3 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 200 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.0K (inferred from the name graph)
≈320,000 named Shamim, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
United Arab Emirates, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Shamim in US United States, PK Pakistan, SG Singapore and 1 more, Shammi in BD Bangladesh, LK Sri Lanka and Shumi in CN China.
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 Shamma is derived from the Hebrew root 'shamem' (שָׁמֵם), meaning 'to be desolate' or 'waste'. It can be translated as desolation, astonishment, or waste.
Sources 1
- Biblical Names Compiled Database
Attested across 11 languages in the etymology graph.
How Shamma is read(measured from records)
Shamma is one spelling over 3 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- Hindi44%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Shamma in Hindi.
- Arabic37%
perfume, fragrant
as a nameA Dictionary of Muslim Names
pinch of snuff
as a nameA Dictionary of Muslim Names
- English8.3%
Biblical name
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
An Ethiopian shawl.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Shamma 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BD Bangladesh | #914 | ≈320,000 est. | ≈1 in 503 | 438 | Shammi | 42 |
| PK Pakistan | #624 | ≈21,000 est. | ≈1 in 11K | listed | Shamim | 67 |
| AE United Arab Emirates | — | ≈9,900 est. | ≈1 in 1K | — | Shamma | 3 |
| CN China | — | ≈7,700 est. | ≈1 in 182K | — | Shumi | 7 |
| KE Kenya | — | ≈4,100 est. | ≈1 in 13K | listed | Shamim | 15 |
| LK Sri Lanka | — | ≈2,400 est. | ≈1 in 9.7K | — | Shammi | 17 |
| US United States | — | 2,092as Shamim | 1 in 159K | 1.6K | Shamim | 200 |
| SG Singapore | #979 | ≈620 est. | ≈1 in 10K | — | Shamim | 17 |
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; Bangladeshi name database containing surnames and first names categorized by gender and frequency.. 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)
Shamma 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.
The name Shamma is derived from the Hebrew root 'shamem' (שָׁמֵם), meaning 'to be desolate' or 'waste'. It can be translated as desolation, astonishment, or waste.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
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)
- Shamma Friedmanb. 1937ILAmerican scholar of Talmud
- Shamma Jainb. 1959INIndian diplomat
- Shamma Al Mazruib. 1993AEpolitician
- Shamma al-Bastakib. 1997AEEmirati poet and plastic artist
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)
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 32 sources across 19 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 289 | #72,473 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 275 | #71,042 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 223 | #79,394 |
| 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 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
- Where does the name Shamma come from?
- The name Shamma is derived from the Hebrew root 'shamem' (שָׁמֵם), meaning 'to be desolate' or 'waste'. It can be translated as desolation, astonishment, or waste. Recorded by Biblical Names Compiled Database.
- How do you pronounce Shamma?
- A machine transcription gives /ʃəmmə/ (IPA) for Hindi.
- Is Shamma a male or female name?
- Shamma is a female 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.
- What does the name Shamma mean?
- In English, An Ethiopian shawl.
- In which country does Shamma have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 324 thousand people named Shamim in Bangladesh, more than in any other country we hold.
- How common is the name Shamma?
- In the United States, the national register counted 2,092 people named Shamim in 2020, about 1 in 159 thousand residents.
- How common is Shamma compared with other names?
- In Bangladesh, Shamma is the 914th most common given name of 29,323 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Shamma?
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/shammaThe 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, “Shamma” — the 914th most common given name in Bangladesh. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.