  Pairing gaps for fermionic atoms in harmonic oscillator traps are calculated
for a wide range of interaction strengths and particle number, and compared to
pairing in nuclei. Especially systems, where the pairing gap exceeds the level
spacing but is smaller than the shell splitting $\hbar\omega$, are studied
which applies to most trapped Fermi atomic systems as well as to finite nuclei.
When solving the gap equation for a large trap with such multi-level pairing,
one finds that the matrix elements between nearby harmonic oscillator levels
and the quasi-particle energies lead to a double logarithm of the gap, and a
pronounced shell structure at magic numbers. It is argued that neutron and
proton pairing in nuclei belongs to the class of multi-level pairing, that
their shell structure follows naturally and that the gaps scale as $\sim
A^{-1/3}$ - all in qualitative agreement with odd-even staggering of nuclear
binding energies. Pairing in large systems are related to that in the bulk
limit. For large nuclei the neutron and proton superfluid gaps approach the
asymptotic value in infinite nuclear matter: $\Delta\simeq 1.1$ MeV.
