Chatham
An English place name referring to a homestead occupied by huts.
Name Census estimates that about 197 living Americans carry the first name Chatham. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 77.9% of registrations being male. The average person named Chatham today is around 15 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Chatham births was 2016 (19 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Chatham. 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.
People living today
197
~ 1 in 1,739,870 Americans
Peak year
2016
19 babies that year
Average age
15
years old
2024 SSA rank
#7,839
Tracked since 1984
Census
Chatham in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 280 people with the first name Chatham, which placed it at #30,870 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
#30,870
National first-name rank
People counted
280
280 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
87.1% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Chatham
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Chatham is White at 87.1%. The next largest groups are Two or More Races (5.4%) and Black (4.3%). 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 Chatham 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 Chatham at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White87.1% · 244
- Two or more races5.4% · 15
- Black or African American4.3% · 12
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.8% · 5
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.1% · 3
- Hispanic or Latino0.4% · 1
Gender
Gender distribution for Chatham
Chatham is one of the more evenly split names in the SSA data. Of the 199 total registrations, 155 (77.9%) were male and 44 (22.1%) were female.
Chatham as a male name
- Ranked #7,839 in 2024
- 10 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2015 (14 births)
Chatham as a female name
- Ranked #15,711 in 2024
- 5 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2016 (7 births)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Chatham on both sides of the split. Of the 282 people counted with this name, 195 were male (69.1%) and 87 were female (30.9%).
Popularity
Chatham: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Chatham from the 1980s through to the 2020s, spanning 5 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 100 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Chatham remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Chatham 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 Chatham during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Chathams live
Origin
Meaning and history of Chatham
The name Chatham has its origins in the Old English language and can be traced back to the Anglo-Saxon period in Britain, around the 5th to 11th centuries AD. It is derived from the Old English words "cæt" meaning "a homestead" and "ham" meaning "a village or settlement." Together, these words formed the place name "Cæt-ham," which referred to a hamlet or village where farmers or peasants lived.
Historically, the town of Chatham in Kent, England, is one of the earliest recorded instances of this name. The town's name was first mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086, a detailed survey of land and landholdings commissioned by William the Conqueror. The entry in the Domesday Book refers to the town as "Cedham," which is believed to be an early spelling variation of Chatham.
One of the earliest notable individuals with the name Chatham was Sir John de Chatham, a 14th-century English landowner and member of the gentry class. He was born around 1320 in Chatham, Kent, and held significant landholdings in the area.
Another historical figure with the name Chatham was William Pitt the Elder, 1st Earl of Chatham (1708-1778), a British statesman and Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1766 to 1768. He was born William Pitt in Westminster, London, and was later granted the title Earl of Chatham in recognition of his distinguished military and political career.
In the literary world, one of the most renowned individuals with the name Chatham was Sir Thomas Chatham (1582-1638), an English poet and playwright during the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras. He was born in London and is best known for his plays, including "The Tragedy of Hoffmann" and "The Humorous Courtier."
Another notable figure was Sir Edward Chatham (1610-1672), an English naval officer and explorer who served in the Royal Navy during the 17th century. He was born in Chatham, Kent, and played a significant role in exploring and mapping the coastlines of North America and the Caribbean.
Finally, in the realm of science, Sir Joseph Chatham (1842-1919) was a prominent British chemist and inventor. He was born in Manchester and made significant contributions to the field of organic chemistry, including the development of synthetic dyes and explosives.
People
Chatham + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Chatham 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
Chatham: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Chatham?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 197 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Chatham 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 1,739,870 US residents.
Is Chatham a common name?
We classify Chatham as "Very Rare". It ranks above 74% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 199 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Chatham most popular?
The single biggest year for Chatham was 2016, when 19 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Chatham is about 15 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Chatham in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 280 people with the name Chatham, or 0.09 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #30,870 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 Chatham 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 Chatham?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Chatham on both sides of the split. Of the 282 people counted with this name, 195 were male (69.1%) and 87 were female (30.9%). 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 Chatham?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Chatham is White at 87.1%. The next largest groups are Two or More Races (5.4%) and Black (4.3%). 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 Chatham most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Chatham in the 2020 Census, accounting for 87.1% (244 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 Chatham in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Chatham a male name?
Yes, 77.9% of people registered as Chatham 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 Chatham still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Chatham 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 Chatham 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 Americans are named Chatham?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.