Shaft — boys' name

What the Data Says About Shaft

The Social Security Administration has registered 103 babies named Shaft between 1971 and 1996, spanning 26 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a boy's name, Shaft currently falls outside the top 1,000 boys' names for 1996. The name reached its historical peak in 1972, when 32 babies received it in a single year.

Decade-level aggregation shows that Shaft performed strongest in the 1970s, accumulating 85 births during that ten-year window. Across the 2 decades of recorded activity, Shaft shows a clear decline from its mid-century high. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in North Carolina, which accounts for 6 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by Texas and Louisiana. In total, SSA state-level files list Shaft in 3 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for Shaft in our reference dataset. These figures derive from SSA's annual national and state-level name files, which include any name appearing at least five times in a given year or state-year; names below that threshold are suppressed for privacy and therefore excluded from the totals shown here. The 103 total represents a lower bound — actual usage may be higher in years or states where the count fell below the disclosure floor. This page is provided for informational and research purposes only and does not constitute personal, legal, or naming advice.