Shadoe
A variation of the name Shadow, possibly from the English shade or shadow.
Name Census estimates that about 246 living Americans carry the first name Shadoe. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 73.3% of registrations being male. The average person named Shadoe today is around 36 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Shadoe births was 1989 (55 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Shadoe. 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.
People living today
246
~ 1 in 1,393,310 Americans
Peak year
1989
55 babies that year
Average age
36
years old
1997 SSA rank
#9,084
Tracked since 1987
Census
Shadoe in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 236 people with the first name Shadoe, which placed it at #34,545 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
#34,545
National first-name rank
People counted
236
236 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
74.6% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Shadoe
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Shadoe is White at 74.6%. The next largest groups are Black (8.1%) and Hispanic (7.2%). 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 Shadoe 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 Shadoe at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White74.6% · 176
- Black or African American8.1% · 19
- Hispanic or Latino7.2% · 17
- American Indian and Alaska Native5.1% · 12
- Two or more races3.8% · 9
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.3% · 3
Gender
Gender distribution for Shadoe
Shadoe is one of the more evenly split names in the SSA data. Of the 255 total registrations, 187 (73.3%) were male and 68 (26.7%) were female.
Shadoe as a male name
- Ranked #9,084 in 1997
- 6 male births in 1997
- Peak: 1988 (43 births)
Shadoe as a female name
- Ranked #15,315 in 1995
- 5 female births in 1995
- Peak: 1990 (15 births)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Shadoe on both sides of the split. Of the 237 people counted with this name, 163 were male (68.8%) and 74 were female (31.2%).
Popularity
Shadoe: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Shadoe from the 1980s through to the 1990s, spanning 2 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1990s, with 134 total registrations. The name continues to be given at rates close to its all-time high, suggesting it has not yet fallen out of fashion.
Babies born per year
Decades
Shadoe 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 Shadoe during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Origin
Meaning and history of Shadoe
The name Shadoe is derived from the Old English word 'sceadu', which means 'shade' or 'shadow'. Its origins can be traced back to the Anglo-Saxon period in Britain, between the 5th and 11th centuries AD. The name was likely used to describe someone who lived in a shady or secluded area, or perhaps someone with a darker complexion.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Shadoe can be found in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a historical record of events in Anglo-Saxon England. In the entry for the year 675 AD, a person named Shadoe is mentioned as a witness to a land grant made by King Wulfhere of Mercia.
In the medieval period, the name Shadoe appeared in various forms, such as Shadewe, Shadowe, and Shadoe. One notable bearer of the name was Shadoe of Winchester, a 12th-century scribe and illuminator who worked on several manuscripts, including the Winchester Bible.
During the Renaissance, the name Shadoe was occasionally used as a first name, although it was more common as a surname. One example is Shadoe Bramhall (1592-1663), an English churchman who served as the Archbishop of Armagh in Ireland.
In the 18th century, Shadoe Burgess (1735-1805) was a British naval officer and explorer who served in the Royal Navy during the American Revolutionary War. He later wrote a memoir titled "Memoirs of the Life and Remarkable Exploits of Sir Shadoe Burgess".
Another notable bearer of the name was Shadoe Stevens (1779-1858), an American pioneer and frontiersman who played a significant role in the exploration and settlement of the American West. He is considered one of the earliest settlers in what would become the state of Oregon.
People
Shadoe + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Shadoe 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
Shadoe: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Shadoe?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 246 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Shadoe 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 1,393,310 US residents.
Is Shadoe a common name?
We classify Shadoe as "Very Rare". It ranks above 76.9% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 255 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Shadoe most popular?
The single biggest year for Shadoe was 1989, when 55 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Shadoe is about 36 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Shadoe in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 236 people with the name Shadoe, or 0.08 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #34,545 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 Shadoe 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 Shadoe?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Shadoe on both sides of the split. Of the 237 people counted with this name, 163 were male (68.8%) and 74 were female (31.2%). 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 Shadoe?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Shadoe is White at 74.6%. The next largest groups are Black (8.1%) and Hispanic (7.2%). 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 Shadoe most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Shadoe in the 2020 Census, accounting for 74.6% (176 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 Shadoe in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Shadoe a male name?
Yes, 73.3% of people registered as Shadoe 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 Shadoe still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Shadoe 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 Shadoe 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 many people are called Shadoe?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.