A Sanskrit name meaning "peace" or "tranquility."
Shanti flows from Sanskrit शान्ति (śānti), meaning "peace," "tranquility," "calm," or "rest." It is one of the most sacred words in Hindu and Buddhist tradition, chanted at the close of prayers and rituals in the threefold invocation shanti, shanti, shanti — addressed to the three sources of suffering: physical, mental, and spiritual. The repetition is not mere emphasis but a ritual act, calling for peace in body, mind, and the unseen world simultaneously.
The name carries enormous literary and philosophical weight. S. Eliot borrowed the word to close his landmark 1922 poem "The Waste Land," appending "Shantih shantih shantih" with a footnote explaining it as "the Peace which passeth understanding" — a phrase borrowed from the Christian tradition but here anchoring a poem suffused with Eastern and Western spiritual exhaustion.
The name is borne across India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and among Hindu diaspora communities globally, and is also a popular name in Bali and among practitioners of yoga and Vedantic spirituality worldwide. In recent decades, Shanti has traveled well beyond South Asian communities, adopted by parents in Europe, North America, and Australia who are drawn to its sound — soft, open, ending in that gentle long-e — and to its meaning. It sits at an unusual intersection: ancient, spiritually resonant, easy to pronounce across most languages, and genuinely meaningful rather than invented. Few names carry such a direct semantic gift to their bearers.