Shannon vs Shawn

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Shannon Shawn

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Of the 122 years in which either name was published, Shannon for 77 years and Shawn for 45 years. The lead changed hands 7 times.

• 1881–1953 Shannon ahead
• 1954–1968 Shawn ahead
• 1969–1972 Shannon ahead
• 1973 Shawn ahead
• 1974–1989 Shannon ahead
• 1990–1991 Shawn ahead
• 1992–1998 Shannon ahead
• 1999–2025 Shawn ahead

Side by side

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Where each one is strongest

• Shannon Alaska (1.9×), Hawaii (1.6×), Oregon (1.4×)
• Shawn Alaska (2.0×), Vermont (2.0×), Montana (1.9×)

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

• Shannon vs Sharon
• Shannon vs Shane
• Shannon vs Shaun
• Shannon vs Shawna
• Shannon vs Shari
• Shawn vs Sharon
• Shawn vs Shane
• Shawn vs Shaun