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.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Chanan with official rankings and popularity over time.
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
Census
Chanan in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 264 people with the first name Chanan, which placed it at #32,084 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#32,084
National first-name rank
People counted
264
264 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
39.0% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Chanan
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Chanan is White at 39.0%. The next largest groups are Asian/Pacific Islander (36.7%) and Black (14.4%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Chanan described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Chanan at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White39.0% · 103
- Asian and Pacific Islander36.7% · 97
- Black or African American14.4% · 38
- Two or more races4.9% · 13
- Hispanic or Latino4.2% · 11
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.8% · 2
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.
How common was Chanan in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 264 people with the name Chanan, or 0.09 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #32,084 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Chanan in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Chanan?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Chanan on both sides of the split. Of the 264 people counted with this name, 188 were male (71.2%) and 76 were female (28.8%). The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Chanan?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Chanan is White at 39.0%. The next largest groups are Asian/Pacific Islander (36.7%) and Black (14.4%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Chanan most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Chanan in the 2020 Census, accounting for 39.0% (103 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Chanan in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
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.
Is Chanan still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Chanan in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Chanan can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
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.
How many people have Chanan as a first name?
If you just want to know how many Americans are named Chanan, HowManyOfMe.org gives you the headline number in one glance.