Humanverse

Shonna vs Shoshanna

American parents have registered 3,089 Shonnas since 1880, against 823 Shoshannas. But in 2025 it was Shoshanna that was commoner, 9 babies to fewer than five.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Shonna against Shoshanna, 1880 to 2025 0 50 100 150 200 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Shonna Shoshanna

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 79 years in which either name was published, Shonna for 49 years and Shoshanna for 30 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Shonna Shoshanna
Total US births 3,089823
Most in one year 19426
Babies in 2025 under 59
Estimated living today 2,900800
Median age today 5029
Peak year 19771980
Best rank 779th girls3,215th girls
Rank in 2025 unranked10,107th
First recorded 19421960
Girls / boys 3,089 / 0823 / 0

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.

Which name is older

Half of the Shonnas alive today are over 50; half the Shoshannas are over 29. That is 21 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Both names abroad

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

Country Shonna Shoshanna
England and Wales 96

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

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Shonna and Shoshanna.