Chanan
A masculine Hebrew name meaning "favored by God" or "God is gracious".
Name Census estimates that about 90 living Americans carry the first name Chanan. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Chanan today is around 19 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Chanan births was 2014 (13 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Chanan. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
Key insights
- • Fewer than 100 living Americans are believed to carry the name Chanan. It is among the rarest names in the SSA records.
People living today
90
~ 1 in 3,808,382 Americans
Peak year
2014
13 babies that year
Average age
19
years old
2019 SSA rank
#9,924
Tracked since 1977
Popularity
Chanan: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Chanan from the 1970s through to the 2010s, spanning 4 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 61 total registrations. The name continues to be given at rates close to its all-time high, suggesting it has not yet fallen out of fashion.
Babies born per year
Decades
Chanan by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Chanan during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Origin
Meaning and history of Chanan
The name Chanan is derived from the Hebrew language and has its origins in ancient Semitic cultures. It is a variant spelling of the name Hanan, which means "he was gracious" or "he showed favor" in Hebrew.
The name Chanan can be traced back to the biblical period, with its earliest known appearance in the Old Testament. In the Book of Jeremiah, one of the prophets is referred to as Hanan, which is the more common spelling of the name.
One of the earliest recorded individuals with the name Chanan was Hanan the son of Igdaliah, who is mentioned in the Book of Jeremiah as a messenger sent by the prophet to the exiles in Babylon. This would place him in the 6th century BCE during the Babylonian captivity.
In the Middle Ages, the name Chanan was used by Jewish communities in Europe and the Middle East. One notable bearer was Chanan ben Samuel ha-Nasi, a 10th-century Jewish scholar and leader from Babylon.
During the Renaissance period, the name Chanan appeared in various literary works and historical records. For example, Chanan ben Yaakov Ashkenazi was a 16th-century Italian Jewish scholar and author.
In more recent history, Chanan Arieli was an Israeli diplomat and politician who served as the country's ambassador to several nations in the 20th century. He was born in 1901 and passed away in 1980.
Another notable individual with the name Chanan was Chanan Rapaport, an Israeli mathematician and computer scientist who made significant contributions to the field of computational geometry. He was born in 1944 and died in 2008.
Chanan Inge was a South African writer and activist who fought against apartheid. He was born in 1934 and passed away in 2014.
In the world of sports, Chanan Singh was an Indian field hockey player who competed in the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, where the Indian team won a gold medal.
People
Chanan + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Chanan as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with C
Other first names starting with C with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Chanan: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Chanan?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 90 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Chanan going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 3,808,382 US residents.
Is Chanan a common name?
We classify Chanan as "Very Rare". It ranks above 63% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 92 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Chanan most popular?
The single biggest year for Chanan was 2014, when 13 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Chanan is about 19 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
Is Chanan a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Chanan in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.