Shakira
- Pronunciation
- [Sha-ki-ra]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- Not recorded
- Origin
- English
Shakira is a name traditionally given to a girl of English origin. Our sources do not preserve a single agreed-upon literal translation for this particular name, so we list its meaning as unrecorded rather than guess at one. Browse more English baby names or search the full library by meaning.
About the Name Shakira
Shakira derives from the Arabic shakir, meaning "thankful" or "grateful," the feminine form expressing gratitude — a name of warmth and graciousness widely used across the Arabic-speaking world. Its lilting three-syllable sound gives it an exotic, musical flair that has carried it well beyond its origins and into international recognition, where it reads as vibrant and unmistakably rhythmic.
Much of its global recognition rests with Shakira, the Colombian singer-songwriter, dancer, and businesswoman born in 1977, whose three-decade career has produced four Grammy Awards, thirteen Latin Grammy Awards, and more than eighty million records sold worldwide. Her fame turned the name into a vivid emblem of artistry, dance, and crossover stardom. The single recorded variant is Shaka.
Shakira's run in the US Social Security top-1000 was relatively brief: it entered for girls in 2000, reached its peak in 2002 at rank #536, and was last recorded in 2006 at #780; it had stood at #747 in 2003 along the way, accumulating 1,734 girls across that span. The pattern closely tracks the early-2000s arrival of its most famous bearer on the world stage, marking it as a name with a concentrated, of-its-moment popularity that captured a particular cultural wave and the spirit of an era.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Shakira
US Popularity History (2000–2006)
Annual US births named Shakira by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2002 with 512 girls named Shakira (girl rank #536 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2006, ranked #780 for girls (353 US births). That's 244 places below its 2002 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Where in the US Is Shakira Most Popular?
Average girl-name rank within each state across 2003–2012 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's girls-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Shakira the strongest states are Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina.
Strongest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mississippi | #358 | 92 |
| 2 | Alabama | #492 | 71 |
| 3 | South Carolina | #496 | 91 |
| 4 | Virginia | #581 | 39 |
| 5 | New York | #636 | 84 |
| 6 | Louisiana | #660 | 55 |
| 7 | Florida | #682 | 71 |
| 8 | Georgia | #711 | 119 |
| 9 | North Carolina | #774 | 68 |
| 10 | Maryland | #780 | 36 |
Weakest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Illinois | #842 | 45 |
| 2 | Tennessee | #810 | 37 |
| 3 | Wisconsin | #804 | 19 |
| 4 | Pennsylvania | #802 | 47 |
| 5 | Maryland | #780 | 36 |
| 6 | North Carolina | #774 | 68 |
| 7 | Georgia | #711 | 119 |
| 8 | Florida | #682 | 71 |
| 9 | Louisiana | #660 | 55 |
| 10 | New York | #636 | 84 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2003–2012. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Shakira in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Famous People Named Shakira
1 notable figure from history and culture who share the name Shakira.
- Shakira — Pop Singer (1977)
Looking for names like Shakira?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Shakira to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Shakira against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).