Shem is listed first among Noah’s three sons in Genesis.
Genesis 5:32 names Noah’s sons as Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Genesis 6:10 repeats that sequence when describing Noah’s family before the Flood. Shem is therefore the first son named in the biblical lists, even though the text’s chronology and later genealogies require careful reading.
The three sons are central to the post-Flood genealogy in Genesis 10, often called the Table of Nations. Genesis 9 also describes an episode involving Noah, Ham, and Noah’s other sons after the Flood, followed by a blessing connected with Shem and a statement concerning Japheth.
Canaan is not one of Noah’s three sons; he is identified as Ham’s son in Genesis. That distinction matters because names from the family genealogy are often mixed together in short summaries of the story. Shem is also traditionally connected with the term “Semitic,” though modern scholarship uses that label in a broader linguistic sense.