Sheena
- Pronunciation
- [Shee-na]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- God's Gift
- Origin
- Hebrew
About the Name Sheena
Sheena is an Anglicization of the Scottish Gaelic Sine, itself a Gaelic form of Jane or Jean, which derive ultimately from the Latin Iohanna, the feminine form of John — and through it back to the Hebrew Yohanan, meaning "God is gracious." The name's meaning is "God's Gift," which captures the same underlying sense of divine grace and favor. Sheena thus carries a long chain of transmission — from Hebrew to Latin to French to Scottish Gaelic to English — that gives it roots far older than its relatively recent American chart appearance would suggest.
Sheena first entered the US Social Security top-1000 in 1984 and peaked that same year at rank #80, with 3,597 births. Its top-1000 window was brief — just two years, last appearing in 1985 at rank #91 with 3,062 births — accumulating a total of 6,659 top-1000 births across its tracked span. It has not re-entered the SSA top-1000 in the SSA top-1000 beyond 1985, giving it a very focused mid-1980s moment in American naming fashion.
Sheena's appeal lies in its Scottish Gaelic character — a name that feels Celtic and lyrical without being difficult to pronounce or spell in an English-speaking context. Recorded variants include Shena and Sine, the latter being the original Gaelic form from which the Anglicization derives.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Sheena
US Popularity History (1984–1985)
Annual US births named Sheena by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1984 with 3,597 girls named Sheena (girl rank #80 that year).
Where it stands today: in 1985, ranked #91 for girls (3,062 US births). That's 11 places below its 1984 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 Sheena Most Popular?
Average girl-name rank within each state across 1982–1988 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 Sheena the strongest states are Hawaii, Mississippi, West Virginia.
Strongest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hawaii | #53 | 170 |
| 2 | Mississippi | #64 | 170 |
| 3 | West Virginia | #66 | 145 |
| 4 | Arkansas | #67 | 135 |
| 5 | South Carolina | #70 | 172 |
| 6 | Kentucky | #73 | 199 |
| 7 | Nevada | #73 | 65 |
| 8 | Georgia | #73 | 419 |
| 9 | Tennessee | #74 | 409 |
| 10 | Virginia | #74 | 258 |
Weakest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nebraska | #90 | 73 |
| 2 | Rhode Island | #88 | 55 |
| 3 | Oregon | #85 | 168 |
| 4 | Idaho | #85 | 76 |
| 5 | Pennsylvania | #84 | 462 |
| 6 | North Dakota | #84 | 43 |
| 7 | Utah | #80 | 123 |
| 8 | North Carolina | #79 | 469 |
| 9 | Oklahoma | #78 | 169 |
| 10 | District of Columbia | #77 | 60 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 1982–1988. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Sheena in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sine | Praise | Female | Irish |
Looking for names like Sheena?
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 Sheena to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Sheena against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).