Shannon
given name · Latin script
Meaning: (i) from Irish Gaelic O Seandin, ‘descendant of Seandn’, a personal name meaning ‘little old or wise one’; (ii) a different form of Shanahan
Used for both men and women, depending on the country· national registers that list names by sex disagree
- United States (Census Bureau, 2020): listed as female
- France (INSEE, 2023): listed as female
- Netherlands (Meertens NVB): listed as female
- Australia (NSW BDM, 1998): listed under both sexes
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 43 countries · latest register: SSA, 2025
/ˈʃænən/(recorded in a dictionary) English · from Wiktionary
Shannon is a given name used for both men and women, depending on the country, written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 810(inferred from the name graph)
- IEIreland≈1 in 850
- CACanada≈1 in 860
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 Shannon itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. Countries with no figure are shown too: flat where a national register lists the name without counting it, hatched where only our records hold it. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- #398 (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Record sources
- 600 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 814 (inferred from the name graph)
300,975 people, 2020
of 15M given names, spellings grouped
recorded for this name
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
New Zealand, est.
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)(i) from Irish Gaelic O Seandin, ‘descendant of Seandn’, a personal name meaning ‘little old or wise one’; (ii) a different form of Shanahan.
Cited for this meaning 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Often considered alongside
Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Shannon, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.
From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Shannon 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | #160 | 300,975 | 1 in 1.1K | 262K | Shannon | 600 |
| GB United Kingdom | #257 | ≈54,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.2K | 4 | Shannon | 291 |
| CA Canada | #148 | ≈44,000 est. | ≈1 in 857 | 1 | Shannon | 298 |
| MM Myanmar (Burma) | #513 | ≈43,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.3K | — | Shannon | 9 |
| EG Egypt | — | ≈31,000 est. | ≈1 in 3.3K | — | Shannon | 23 |
| AU Australia | #183 | ≈29,000 est. | ≈1 in 879 | 148 | Shannon | 278 |
| IE Ireland | #128 | ≈6,100 est. | ≈1 in 846 | 15 | Shannon | 121 |
| NZ New Zealand | #157 | ≈6,100 est. | ≈1 in 814 | 12 | Shannon | 146 |
300,975 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. 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; NISRA — Baby names Northern Ireland full list (1997–present); NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present); CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present). 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)Shannon 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 French, Irish given name; on this page associated with Jean/Jeanne family.
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
In Irish, Name of Ireland's longest river; used as a given name in Ireland.
as a nameIrish first names
In English, The longest river in the British Isles, which flows through Ireland into the Atlantic Ocean.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, river, Ireland; pers. name
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In French, Du nom irlandais du fleuve Shannon; origine irlandaise, « ancienne ».
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
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)- Shannon Lucidb. 1943USAmerican biochemist and retired NASA astronaut
- Shannon Walkerb. 1965USAmerican scientist and NASA astronaut
- Shannon Leeb. 1969USAmerican actress
- Shannon Letob. 1970USAmerican drummer
- Shannon Elizabethb. 1973USAmerican actress
- Shannon Millerb. 1977USAmerican artistic gymnast (born 1977)
- Shannon Luciob. 1980USAmerican actress
- Shay Mitchellb. 1987CAnot in their usual nameCanadian actress
- Shannon Kookb. 1987ZASouth African actor (born 1987)
- Shannon Purserb. 1997USAmerican actress
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)87 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 43 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 262K | #171 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 39K | #171 |
| AU Australia | NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present) | 1998 | 148 | #50 |
| AU Australia | NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present) | 1991 | 85 | #94 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 75 | — |
| AU Australia | QLD BDM — Top 100 Baby Names Queensland (1960–present) | 1990 | 67 | — |
| AU Australia | QLD BDM — Top 100 Baby Names Queensland (1960–present) | 2000 | 47 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 41 | — |
| IE Ireland | CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present) | 2017 | 15 | #301 |
| CA Canada | Statistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01) | 2024 | 10 | — |
| CA Canada | Statistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01) | 2017 | 5 | — |
| CA Canada | Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender | 2023 | 1 | #2,333 |
Reference works 5
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- 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
- Is Shannon a male or female name?
- Shannon is used for both men and women, depending on the country. National registers that list names by sex disagree: United States (Census Bureau, 2020): listed as female; France (INSEE, 2023): listed as female; Netherlands (Meertens NVB): listed as female; Australia (NSW BDM, 1998): listed under both sexes. We don't publish a percentage split.
- What are other forms of the name Shannon?
- In the etymology graph, Shana, Shanna and Shanon are forms of the same name in other languages.
- What does the name Shannon mean, and where does it come from?
- (i) from Irish Gaelic O Seandin, ‘descendant of Seandn’, a personal name meaning ‘little old or wise one’; (ii) a different form of Shanahan. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- How common is the name Shannon?
- In the United States, the national register counted 300,975 people named Shannon in 2020, about 1 in 1.1 thousand residents.
- How common is Shannon compared with other names?
- In the United States, Shannon is the 160th most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
- In which country does Shannon have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 301 thousand people named Shannon, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled shannon.
- How do you pronounce Shannon?
- In English /ˈʃænən/ (Wiktionary).
What do you want to know about Shannon?
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/shannonThe 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, “Shannon” — the 160th most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.