Shawn is an American spelling of Sean, the Irish form of John, and like John it means "God is gracious", from the Hebrew Yochanan. The phonetic spellings Shawn and Shaun became popular in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s, and singer Shawn Mendes is a well-known recent bearer. Shawn ranked number 135 in 2000, its best year in this century, and has slipped steadily since then to number 682 in 2025.