Shani
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Swahili: 'marvellous'; also 'an adventure, something unusual'
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/ʃɑni/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Shani is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Pakistan than in any other country.
- PKPakistan≈1 in 3.1K(inferred from the name graph)
- LKSri Lanka≈1 in 2.5K
- TZTanzania≈1 in 2.5K
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)
- Sources
- 136 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 2.5K (inferred from the name graph)
≈76,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Sri Lanka, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
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)
Swahili: 'marvellous'; also 'an adventure, something unusual'
Sources 1
- African Names
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Shani 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 | — | ≈76,000 est. | ≈1 in 3.1K | — | Shani | 31 |
| TZ Tanzania | — | ≈24,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.5K | — | Shani | 11 |
| LK Sri Lanka | #439 | ≈9,300 est. | ≈1 in 2.5K | — | Shani | 23 |
| US United States | — | 4,439 | 1 in 75K | 4.3K | Shani | 136 |
| IL Israel | — | ≈2,600 est. | ≈1 in 3.4K | — | Shani | 30 |
| XK Kosovo | — | ≈210 est. | ≈1 in 9.3K | 605 | — | 2 |
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; ASK Kosovo — Kërko Emrin (Name Search). 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)
Shani 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, The Hindu god associated with the planet Saturn
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Arabic, significant; notable
as a nameAfrican Muslim Names
circumstance
as a nameWhats in a name = Unaitwaje a Swahili book of names
Marvelous
as a nameA Handbook of African Names
In Swahili, novelty, curiosity
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)
- Shani Wallisb. 1933GBEnglish-American actress
- Shani Mootoob. 1957CACanadian artist (born 1957)
- Shani Rigsbeeb. 1967USAmerican singer-songwriter
- Shani Dilukab. 1976FRMonegasque classical pianist
- Shani Evenstein Sigalovb. 1977ILIsraeli educator, researcher, open knowledge advocate and Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees vice chair
- Shani Davisb. 1982USAmerican speed skater
- Shani Atiasb. 1991ILIsraeli actress
- Shani Tarashajb. 1995CHSwiss association football player
- Shani Loukb. 2001ILGerman-Israeli tattoo artist who was killed in the October 7 attacks
- Shani Bakanovb. 2006ILIsraeli rhythmic gymnast
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 69 sources across 38 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 4.3K | #4,285 |
| XK Kosovo | ASK Kosovo — Kërko Emrin (Name Search) | — | 605 | #1,006 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 105 | #4,285 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 7 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2000 | 5 | — |
| XK Kosovo | ASK Kosovo — Kërko Emrin (Name Search) | 2023 | 2 | — |
Reference works 4
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- 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
- How do you pronounce Shani?
- A machine transcription gives /ʃɑni/ (IPA) for Hindi.
- Is Shani a male or female name?
- Shani 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.
- What does the name Shani mean, and where does it come from?
- Swahili: 'marvellous'; also 'an adventure, something unusual' Recorded by African Names.
- In which country does Shani have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 76 thousand people named Shani in Pakistan, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled shani.
- How common is the name Shani?
- In the United States, the national register counted 4,439 people named Shani in 2020, about 1 in 75 thousand residents.
- How common is Shani compared with other names?
- In Sri Lanka, Shani is the 439th most common given name of 14,062 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Shani?
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/shaniThe 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, “Shani” — the 439th most common given name in Sri Lanka. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.