Shona

given name · English · Latin script

Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Shona is a given name, most frequently recorded in India, where it is the 92nd most common given name. It appears chiefly in English and French, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: Feminine form of John; sometimes found in Ireland.

rarermore common
  • YEYemen1 in 15◐
  • CZCzechia1 in 282
  • TRTürkiye1 in 416

carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.

≈258K ●

across 9 countries

#444 ●

of 16M given names

12 ●

recorded for this name

Sources
408 ●

4.5M records

Official registry-verified

1 in 250 ◐

Finland

Spellings & scripts●

SoniLatin · Hindi●1.8M records
СанияCyrillic · Russian●144K records
선아Hangul · Korean●37K records
ᲡონაGeorgian · Georgian●2.6K records
สุนาThai · Thai●2.4K records
שאנהHebrew · Hebrew●371 records
ՍոնաArmenian · Armenian●228 records
সানBengali · Bangla●24 records
సనTelugu · Telugu●1 records
ΣοναGreek · Greek●1 records
ਸੁਨGurmukhi · Punjabi●1 records
සේනSinhala · Sinhala●0 records

20 other spellings are counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Sana in FR France, PK Pakistan, ES Spain and 2 more, Shauna in US United States, CA Canada, AU Australia and 1 more, Jona in PH Philippines, FI Finland, BR Brazil and 1 more and Сания in RU Russia, KZ Kazakhstan.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records; ○ marks a model's transliteration. Click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin●

Feminine form of John; sometimes found in Ireland.

Sources 1

  • Irish first names

Attested across 25 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world●

Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.

Where Shona is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
IN India#924,416,5151.9M rec.—218KSoni273
TR Türkiye#321877,312953K rec.—#94Şen103
YE Yemen—267,173236 rec.——Sanaa14
RU Russia#243175,13157K rec.—#122Сания127
US United States#433164,680957K rec.1 in 2K165KShauna408
TH Thailand#119148,56785K rec.—#92,533สุนีย์128
NG Nigeria#39117,517129K rec.—listedSani76
GB United Kingdom#39870,08358K rec.—36Shona159
PK Pakistan#9159,5828.3K rec.—listedSana113
KR South Korea#20557,05229K rec.—1M선아146
PH Philippines#56839,36234K rec.—32KJona74
CZ Czechia#11137,906△2.7K rec.1 in 28238KSona95

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.

Languages●

  • English60K76%
  • French4.6K6%
  • Hindi3.3K4%
  • 1.7K2%
  • Spanish1.5K2%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
English59,94176%
French4,5966%
Hindi3,2984%
1,7482%
Spanish1,4942%

Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.

Other names spelled this way◐

Shona is also recorded as 3 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • French given name7.4K records spelled Shona4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, United Kingdom, India

    Languages: French, Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Shönå

  • a separate given name2.0K records spelled Shona2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, India, United Kingdom, Canada

    Also written Shóna

  • Hebrew given name97 records spelled Shona8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Israel, United States, United Kingdom, Canada

    Also written שונה, Shauna, שאונה, Shuna, Shone

55 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses●

Shona is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • Scottish: Anglicized form of Gaelic Seonag or Seonaid, Gaelic versions of dJoan and pJanet respectively. In America it is pronounced identically with pShauna, and may be used as a variant spelling of that name. It has also become popular as a Black name, probably in part because it is spelled the same as the name of a central African people. Compare Zula for a similar formation.

    as a nameA concise dictionary of first names

  • In English, A language spoken in Zimbabwe and Mozambique.

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In French, Féminin de Sean, forme irlandaise de Jean; origine hébraïque via Jean, « Dieu a fait grâce ».

    as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)

  • In English, Gaélique/anglais, forme apparentée à Joan; hébreu « Dieu fait grâce ».

    as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)

  • In English, lang., southern Africa

    as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names

Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.

Over time●

01020301920194019601980200022 · 1967

Show as table
Shona in naampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls), India, 1915–2015
Yearrecords
19151
19191
19201
19222
19231
19261
19271
19281
19301
19322
19343
19353
19364
19383
19394
19403
19412
19424
19431
19449
19458
19466
194711
19485
19492
19504
19514
19525
19532
19541
19554
195610
19576
19586
19595
19608
19619
196219
196314
196415
196511
196613
196722
19689
19699
197011
19717
197217
197312
197411
19757
197615
197714
19788
19797
19805
19817
198211
19833
19846
198513
19866
198711
19886
19899
19906
19918
19929
19935
19946
19956
19962
19973
20001
20083
20103
20122
20131
20141
20151

IN naampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls) — 80 years between 1915–2015. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

1900195020002050Shona Auerbach, b. 1901Jamie S. Gorelick, b. 1950Shona Robison, b. 1966Shona Heath, b. 1974Shona Thorburn, b. 1982Shona Rubens, b. 1986Shona McGarty, b. 1991Shona McCallin, b. 1992Shona Campbell, b. 2001

The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).

Evidence●

Attested in 43 sources across 26 countries.

Official registers attesting Shona
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex20202.4K#6,543
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024)2014600#3,596
NL NetherlandsMeertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018)—59#7,620
NL NetherlandsMeertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017)—51#11,729
IN IndiaInstate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls—45#6,425
NO NorwaySSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population)—40#13,765
GY GuyanaGuyana — Official List of Electors July 2025202540#554
FI FinlandDVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup)—30#16,551
FI FinlandDVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup)—30#17,756
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex202021#6,543
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—21#24,118
CA CanadaStatistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01)199616—

Reference works 2

  • Wikipedia given-name tokens
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)

These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 435 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Shona?
We estimate roughly 258 thousand people bear Shona (counting its spellings and scripts) across 9 countries in our records.
In which country does Shona have the most bearers?
Shona is most frequently recorded in India, where it is most often spelled soni.
How common is Shona compared with other names?
In India, Shona is the 92nd most common given name of 4,777,337 given names recorded there.
Is Shona a male or female name?
Shona is recorded for both men and women. We don't publish a percentage split: a record's gender belongs to the person and is attached to every given name on that record, so names in cultures where a name string also carries a parent's or spouse's given name pick up large cross-gender counts.
What does the name Shona mean?
Recorded meaning: Feminine form of John; sometimes found in Ireland.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/shona

The same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use. Bulk access and licensing.

About this data

● measured from records◐ inferred from the name graph○ machine-generated

Data snapshot . Figures are rebuilt periodically and will change.

Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.

Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.

Cite this page Mondonomo, “Shona” — the 92nd most common given name in India. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Shona parses inside a full name →