Skip to content
Shem Tov · Hebrew names

UnisexOrigin: HebrewIn Israel: falling

ShaiIn Hebrew: שי · meaning, pronunciation and popularity in Israel

With vowel points: שַׁיRomanization: shay

Shai (Hebrew: שי) is a unisex name of Hebrew origin. 33,944 people born in Israel between 1949 and 2024 have it today, according to Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). In 2024 it was given to 125 boys and ranked #153. Its peak year was 1983, with 842 babies.

People in Israel
33,944
born 1949–2024
Babies in 2024
125
rank #153
Peak year
1983
842 babies
USA, 2025
215
rank #1,030

Writing and saying Shai

In Hebrew letters the name is שי, read right to left. Shai is the Latin spelling recorded by our review; families choose their own spelling in passports, so you may also meet other forms. Wiktionary romanizes it as "shay" (the accent marks the stressed syllable).

Meaning and origin

  • a unisex given name, Shay

Quoted from English Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0), unchanged.

Shai by year: Israel and abroad

How many boys out of every 10,000 born each year have the name. For Israel it counts the people born that year who carry the name today (the CBS counts residents by year of birth, not birth registrations).

Shai: rate per 10,000, 1950–2025

per 10,000 babies of the same sex

Shai in English-speaking countries

Shai in each official list: latest year, count, rank and peak
Country / regionYearBabiesRankPeak
United States2025215#1,0302023 (224)
United Kingdom202514#1,8602013 (25)
England and Wales202514#1,7962012 (24)
Alberta20251#2,3932024 (5)

Counts for boys. The Hebrew page for Shai has every year and the other spellings.

Questions about Shai

How do you write Shai in Hebrew?

Shai is written שי in Hebrew (with vowel points: שַׁי). Hebrew is read right to left. A dictionary romanization is "shay".

How many people in Israel are named Shai?

33,944 people born between 1949 and 2024 carry the name שי: 8,050 women and 25,894 men. The count comes from the CBS table of current first names by year of birth; years with fewer than 5 people are not published.

Is Shai a boy's or a girl's name?

Both. In Israel 24% of the people named שי are women and 76% are men, so we count it as unisex (our threshold: at least 20% of the less common sex).

What does the name Shai mean?

English Wiktionary describes it as: "a unisex given name, Shay"

Is Shai used outside Israel?

The name Shai appears in the official baby name lists of English-speaking countries. In the United States 215 boys were given it in 2025 (#1,030), per the Social Security Administration. In the UK 14 in 2025 (ONS, NRS and NISRA combined).

Sources

Israel: Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), current first names of people born 1949–2024 by sex, population group and year of birth, processed 2026-09-27. CBS publications.

Abroad

Counts are copied as published. We only merged accented spellings (Zoë = Zoe) and computed ranks and rates. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – British Columbia and the Open Government Licence – Alberta.