Shannon
- Pronunciation
- [Sha-nnon]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Little Old Wise One
- Origin
- Irish
About the Name Shannon
Shannon is an Irish place-name transferred to personal use, derived from the Old Irish Sionainn, traditionally interpreted as meaning "little old wise one" or linked to the figure of Sionann in Irish mythology, a goddess associated with the River Shannon — Ireland's longest river, stretching from County Cavan to the Atlantic coast. The name belongs to a well-established tradition of Irish river and landscape names becoming personal names, drawing authority from the deep cultural resonance of the Shannon valley in Irish history and folklore.
On the male side, Shannon entered the US Social Security top-1000 in 1972 and immediately debuted at its peak rank of #94 that same year — a strong first-year showing that suggests rapid mid-century adoption driven by the broader fashion for Irish-inflected names in post-war America. The name logged 9,736 top-1000 births over its tracked period before dropping out of the male top-1000 after 2006, when it ranked #979 with 190 births. Shannon carries a gender-fluid profile: it was used for both boys and girls across the late twentieth century, with its female usage far outpacing male usage at the height of its popularity.
Today Shannon reads as a name of its era — most strongly associated with the 1970s through 1990s — yet retains an appealing Celtic elegance. Its connection to Ireland's greatest river gives it a geographic and mythological depth that purely invented names lack. Related forms in the variants list include Channa, Shana, Shandy, Shane, Shani, and Shanna.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Shannon
US Popularity History (1968–2013)
Annual US births named Shannon by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1970 with 13,547 girls named Shannon (girl rank #22 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2013, ranked #917 for girls (278 US births). That's 895 places below its 1970 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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Variant Forms
Looking for names like Shannon?
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 Shannon to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Shannon against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
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