Shay
A Hebrew name meaning "gift" or "blessing."
Name Census estimates that about 12,501 living Americans carry the first name Shay. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 61.9% of registrations being female. The average person named Shay today is around 27 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Shay births was 2021 (409 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Shay. 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 Shay with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Shay sits in rare territory as a truly gender-neutral name, given to boys and girls in near-equal numbers.
People living today
13K
~ 1 in 27,418 Americans
Peak year
2021
409 babies that year
Average age
27
years old
2024 SSA rank
#1,158
Tracked since 1932
Census
Shay in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 13,896 people with the first name Shay, which placed it at #1,986 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
#1,986
National first-name rank
People counted
14K
13,896 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
4.6
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
68.1% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Shay
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Shay is White at 68.1%. The next largest groups are Black (16.1%) and Hispanic (5.5%). 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 Shay 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 Shay at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White68.1% · 9,460
- Black or African American16.1% · 2,242
- Hispanic or Latino5.5% · 761
- Two or more races5.5% · 760
- Asian and Pacific Islander3.4% · 472
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.4% · 201
Gender
Gender distribution for Shay
Shay is one of the more evenly split names in the SSA data. Of the 12,989 total registrations, 4,947 (38.1%) were male and 8,042 (61.9%) were female.
Shay as a male name
- Ranked #1,701 in 2024
- 98 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1991 (154 births)
Shay as a female name
- Ranked #1,158 in 2024
- 208 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2022 (301 births)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Shay on both sides of the split. Of the 13,892 people counted with this name, 4,581 were male (33.0%) and 9,311 were female (67.0%).
Popularity
Shay: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Shay from the 1930s through to the 2020s, spanning 9 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1990s, with 2,595 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 1990s peak, Shay remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Shay 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 Shay during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Shays live
The SSA's state-level files cover 37 states and territories. California, Texas, New York recorded the most babies named Shay, while Tennessee, Nebraska, Alabama recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 170 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Shay
The name Shay has its origins in the Irish language, deriving from the Gaelic word 'sé' which means 'admirable' or 'worthy of esteem'. It is believed to have emerged as a given name in Ireland during the medieval period, sometime between the 5th and 15th centuries AD.
Shay is a variant spelling of the more traditional Irish name Seán, which is the Irish equivalent of the English name John. The name Seán itself is derived from the Hebrew name Yohanan, meaning 'Yahweh is gracious'. This connection to the Hebrew language suggests that the name Shay may have been influenced by early Christian missionaries who brought biblical names to Ireland.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Shay can be found in the Annals of the Four Masters, a chronicle of medieval Irish history compiled in the 17th century. The chronicle mentions a man named Shay O'Byrne, who was a chieftain of the O'Byrne clan in County Wicklow during the 14th century.
Throughout history, several notable individuals have borne the name Shay. One of the most famous was Shay's Rebellion, a series of armed protests led by Daniel Shays in 1786-1787 against economic policies in Massachusetts following the American Revolutionary War. Shays, a former Continental Army captain, was born in 1747 and died in 1825.
Another prominent figure was Shay Patrick Cormac O'Connor, an Irish politician and barrister who served as Lord Chief Justice of Ireland from 1904 to 1924. He was born in 1847 and passed away in 1935.
In the literary world, Shay Duffin was an Irish novelist and short story writer who gained recognition for his works depicting rural life in Ireland. He was born in 1888 and died in 1967.
In more recent times, Shay Given, an Irish former professional footballer and goalkeeper, played for several clubs including Newcastle United and Manchester City. He was born in 1976 and retired in 2018.
Shay Mooney, an American country music singer and songwriter, is best known as one half of the duo Dan + Shay. He was born in 1992 and continues to actively perform and record music.
People
Shay + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Shay 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
Shay: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Shay?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 12,501 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Shay 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 27,418 US residents.
Is Shay a common name?
We classify Shay as "Uncommon". It ranks above 98% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 12,989 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Shay most popular?
The single biggest year for Shay was 2021, when 409 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Shay is about 27 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Shay in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 13,896 people with the name Shay, or 4.60 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #1,986 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 Shay 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 Shay?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Shay on both sides of the split. Of the 13,892 people counted with this name, 4,581 were male (33.0%) and 9,311 were female (67.0%). 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 Shay?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Shay is White at 68.1%. The next largest groups are Black (16.1%) and Hispanic (5.5%). 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 Shay most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Shay in the 2020 Census, accounting for 68.1% (9,460 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 Shay in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Shay a female name?
Yes, 61.9% of people registered as Shay in the SSA data are female. 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 Shay still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Shay 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 Shay 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 Shay?
Our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers how many Americans are named Shay at a glance, with the living-bearer count up front.