Shade
A shade or shadow, denoting protection or covering.
Name Census estimates that about 1,714 living Americans carry the first name Shade. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 57.0% of registrations being male. The average person named Shade today is around 29 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Shade births was 1993 (88 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Shade. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Shade with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Shade sits in rare territory as a truly gender-neutral name, given to boys and girls in near-equal numbers.
People living today
1.7K
~ 1 in 199,973 Americans
Peak year
1993
88 babies that year
Average age
29
years old
2024 SSA rank
#5,602
Tracked since 1880
Census
Shade in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 1,571 people with the first name Shade, which placed it at #9,023 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#9,023
National first-name rank
People counted
1.6K
1,571 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.5
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
42.8% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Shade
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Shade is White at 42.8%. The next largest groups are Black (39.5%) and Hispanic (8.1%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Shade described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Shade at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White42.8% · 673
- Black or African American39.5% · 620
- Hispanic or Latino8.1% · 127
- Two or more races6.7% · 105
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.9% · 30
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.0% · 16
Gender
Gender distribution for Shade
Shade is one of the more evenly split names in the SSA data. Of the 2,007 total registrations, 1,144 (57.0%) were male and 863 (43.0%) were female.
Shade as a male name
- Ranked #5,602 in 2024
- 17 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1997 (33 births)
Shade as a female name
- Ranked #17,252 in 2024
- 5 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1986 (61 births)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Shade on both sides of the split. Of the 1,570 people counted with this name, 733 were male (46.7%) and 837 were female (53.3%).
Popularity
Shade: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Shade from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1990s, with 624 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1990s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Shade by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Shade during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Shades live
The SSA's state-level files cover 10 states and territories. New York, Illinois, California recorded the most babies named Shade, while Ohio, North Carolina, Maryland recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 25 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Shade
The given name Shade is an English word derived from the Old English "sceadu," meaning "shadow" or "shade." It is believed to have originated in the 12th century as a descriptive term for someone who lived in a shaded or forested area.
In medieval times, the name was often used as a surname, but it gradually transitioned into being used as a first name, particularly among English-speaking communities. One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Shade being used as a first name dates back to the late 16th century in England.
One notable historical figure with the name Shade was Shade KMetko, an American baseball player who played for the Pittsburgh Pirates in the early 20th century. He was born in 1892 and played professional baseball from 1914 to 1925.
Another individual with this name was Shade Carpenter, an American politician who served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from Missouri in the late 19th century. He was born in 1835 and served in Congress from 1893 to 1897.
In the literary world, Shade was the name of a character in Vladimir Nabokov's novel "Pale Fire," published in 1962. The character, a poet, played a central role in the metafictional work.
Shade Buchanan was an American football player who played as a running back in the National Football League (NFL) in the 1990s. He was born in 1969 and played for teams such as the Atlanta Falcons and the Cincinnati Bengals.
Shade Okunade, born in 1998, is a contemporary Nigerian-American professional basketball player who currently plays for the Utah Jazz in the NBA. He was a highly touted high school prospect before being drafted in 2020.
While the name Shade may have originated as a descriptive term, it has evolved into a unique and distinctive given name over the centuries, with notable individuals bearing the name across various fields, including sports, politics, and literature.
People
Shade + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Shade as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with S
Other first names starting with S with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Shade: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Shade?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 1,714 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Shade going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 199,973 US residents.
Is Shade a common name?
We classify Shade as "Rare". It ranks above 93% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 2,007 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Shade most popular?
The single biggest year for Shade was 1993, when 88 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Shade is about 29 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Shade in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 1,571 people with the name Shade, or 0.52 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #9,023 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Shade in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Shade?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Shade on both sides of the split. Of the 1,570 people counted with this name, 733 were male (46.7%) and 837 were female (53.3%). The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Shade?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Shade is White at 42.8%. The next largest groups are Black (39.5%) and Hispanic (8.1%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Shade most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Shade in the 2020 Census, accounting for 42.8% (673 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Shade in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Shade a male name?
Yes, 57.0% of people registered as Shade in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Shade still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Shade in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Shade can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How common is the name Shade?
Our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers how many people share the name Shade at a glance, with the living-bearer count up front.