Shane is the anglicized form of the Irish Seán, which in turn comes from John and the Hebrew Yochanan, meaning "God is gracious". The 1953 Western Shane, with Alan Ladd as the mysterious gunfighter, introduced the name to American parents, and it stayed popular through the 1970s and 1980s. Shane was number 116 in the United States in 2000, 295 in 2015 and ranks 636 in 2025.