Shama
Shama was last recorded in 2024, when 5 babies were given it; 451 Americans have been recorded with it between 1968 and 2024 (Social Security Administration, published May 2026).
Girls and boys together; gaps are years SSA did not record (fewer than 5 births).
Births of Shama by year: SSA national baby-name file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
How popular is Shama?
Unranked in 2025
Its last girls’ rank on record is #17,309, in 2024; SSA lists a name only in years with 5 or more births.
18 babies in 1979, the peak
Shama peaked in 1979, when 18 girls were given it, #4,188 among girls’ names. It was not recorded in 2025.
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 5 | #17,309 | 3.1 |
| 2023 | 9 | #11,039 | 5.6 |
| 2022 | 9 | #11,103 | 5.5 |
| 2021 | 5 | #17,311 | 3.0 |
| 2020 | 7 | #13,257 | 4.3 |
| 2019 | 5 | #17,605 | 3.0 |
| 2016 | 7 | #14,124 | 4.0 |
| 2015 | 5 | #18,706 | 2.8 |
| 2014 | 10 | #10,822 | 5.6 |
| 2012 | 5 | #19,118 | 2.8 |
Every recorded year (47)
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 7 | #14,718 | 3.9 |
| 2008 | 13 | #9,402 | 6.9 |
| 2007 | 7 | #15,215 | 3.6 |
| 2006 | 5 | #19,557 | 2.6 |
| 2004 | 8 | #12,559 | 4.4 |
| 2003 | 8 | #12,214 | 4.4 |
| 2002 | 13 | #8,204 | 7.2 |
| 2001 | 9 | #10,864 | 5.0 |
| 2000 | 6 | #14,698 | 3.3 |
| 1998 | 6 | #13,810 | 3.4 |
| 1997 | 7 | #11,867 | 4.0 |
| 1996 | 11 | #8,021 | 6.3 |
| 1995 | 6 | #13,085 | 3.4 |
| 1994 | 10 | #8,671 | 5.6 |
| 1993 | 14 | #6,553 | 7.7 |
| 1992 | 5 | #15,126 | 2.7 |
| 1991 | 12 | #7,323 | 6.4 |
| 1990 | 16 | #5,777 | 8.4 |
| 1989 | 11 | #7,361 | 6.0 |
| 1988 | 13 | #6,194 | 7.3 |
| 1987 | 11 | #6,698 | 6.3 |
| 1986 | 13 | #5,695 | 7.6 |
| 1985 | 13 | #5,599 | 7.6 |
| 1984 | 8 | #7,998 | 4.8 |
| 1983 | 17 | #4,437 | 10.2 |
| 1982 | 15 | #4,900 | 8.9 |
| 1981 | 14 | #5,193 | 8.4 |
| 1980 | 10 | #6,675 | 6.0 |
| 1979 | 18 | #4,188 | 11.2 |
| 1978 | 8 | #7,503 | 5.2 |
| 1977 | 17 | #4,200 | 11.1 |
| 1976 | 10 | #5,954 | 6.8 |
| 1975 | 10 | #5,890 | 6.9 |
| 1974 | 16 | #3,999 | 10.9 |
| 1973 | 5 | #9,498 | 3.4 |
| 1971 | 7 | #7,212 | 4.2 |
| 1968 | 5 | #7,957 | 3.0 |
Ranks and shares: girls’ names in each year’s SSA file; share of all girls SSA recorded that year.
Is Shama a boy’s or a girl’s name?
Shama has been recorded only for girls: SSA lists no boys with the name in 47 years of records (it lists a name only in years with 5 or more babies of a sex).
Girls and boys named Shama: the SSA national file counts each sex separately.
How many people are named Shama, and how old are they?
An estimated 438 Americans named Shama and born in the U.S. are alive in 2026 (97% of everyone recorded); the median is 36 years old and half are between 23 and 45. An estimate from SSA’s births and life tables, not a count.
The 2020 Census counted 1,299 people named Shama (1,228 women and girls, 71 men and boys). SSA’s births carried forward to Census day, April 1, 2020, predict 408 born in the U.S. The Census count is 3.2 times that prediction. Possible reasons: the Census counts people born abroad, whom SSA’s files leave out, and it records the name people give, which SSA may have recorded under another spelling or as part of a compound name.
Living estimate: SSA births carried forward with the survival rates in SSA’s cohort life tables (2024 Trustees Report) for each birth year and sex. How the estimate is made. Count: Census Bureau, first names in the 2020 Census (released April 14, 2026; names reported 100 or more times, with the Bureau’s disclosure-avoidance adjustment).
Names spelled alike
Of these 8 names spelled alike, given to 7,455 babies since 1880, Shama is the sixth most given (6.0% of them).
Spelled alike: names in the SSA national file with the same pattern of letters and sounds and at most two letters apart, and Wiktionary’s listed forms; births since 1880 and in 2025, and each name’s peak year, from the SSA national file, published May 8, 2026. Some are separate names, not spellings of one.
Names that rose and fell in the same decades as Shama
Names whose births rose and fell across the same decades, measured on each decade’s share of births.
Similar histories: each decade’s share of births, from the SSA national file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
More about Shama and names like it
- Compare Shama and ShamyaBirths, ranks, peak and the living estimate side by side.
- The most given names of the 1970sShama peaked in 1979.
- New York’s most given namesThe state where SSA recorded the most babies named Shama since 1910.
- The top names of 1979The year the most babies were named Shama.
- The names of the MillennialsMost people named Shama alive today were born 1981-1996.
- Names starting with SMost given first.