Shay

Shay in the United States

Between 2016 and 2025 the name has been steady.

Shay is given to both sexes: 8,227 female and 5,325 male births on record. The two curves rarely move together, which is why they are drawn separately rather than summed.

SOURCE·US Social Security Administration, national baby-name data·Public domain. SSA lists a name only if it was given to at least 5 babies of that sex that year.·REVIEWED JUL 2026

Shay in New Zealand

In New Zealand, Shay has been registered 301 times since 1974, peaking in 1991 with 19 births. It did not clear the DIA's 10-birth reporting floor in 2025.

SOURCE·NZ Department of Internal Affairs, births by first name·CC BY 4.0. DIA lists a name only if it was given to at least 10 babies of that sex that year.·REVIEWED JUL 2026

Decade by decade in the US

Where in the United States

The states that registered Shay most often since 1953. These are lifetime totals, so they track state population as much as local taste — a name common in Wyoming will never out-count California.

How these figures are worked out

1. Counts come straight from the registrars: the US Social Security Administration (1880–2025) and the New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs (1900–2025). Nothing is scraped from another names site.
2. Ranks are computed against every name in that year's file, not just the ones this site publishes pages for — otherwise a rank would flatter every name we happen to list.
3. The curve is drawn on births per 100,000 of that sex, not raw counts. Raw counts across eras are misleading: far more births were registered in 1957 than in 1890, so a flat count is a falling share.
4. Each country hides small numbers — the US below 5 births a year, New Zealand below 10. A gap in a line is "below the floor", never "nobody".

Full methodology →

SOURCE·US SSA (1880–2025) + NZ DIA (1900–2025) birth registrations·ranks and shares computed from the source files, see method·REVIEWED JUL 2026