Cheney
Derivation uncertain, perhaps from Old English for "bold-spirited" or from Middle English for "pebble".
Name Census estimates that about 322 living Americans carry the first name Cheney. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 62.8% of registrations being female. The average person named Cheney today is around 30 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Cheney births was 2001 (31 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Cheney. 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
322
~ 1 in 1,064,454 Americans
Peak year
2001
31 babies that year
Average age
30
years old
2019 SSA rank
#12,497
Tracked since 1970
Gender
Gender distribution for Cheney
Cheney is one of the more evenly split names in the SSA data. Of the 333 total registrations, 124 (37.2%) were male and 209 (62.8%) were female.
Cheney as a male name
- Ranked #12,497 in 2019
- 5 male births in 2019
- Peak: 1991 (12 births)
Cheney as a female name
- Ranked #17,335 in 2011
- 5 female births in 2011
- Peak: 2001 (22 births)
Popularity
Cheney: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Cheney from the 1970s through to the 2010s, spanning 5 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2000s, with 123 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 2000s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Cheney 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 Cheney 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 Cheney
The given name Cheney is an English name with origins dating back to the 12th century. It is a toponymic surname derived from the Old English words "cœ-ne" meaning "bold" and "eg" meaning "island," referring to someone who lived near a prominent island.
In its earliest recorded use, the name appeared as "de Cheneio" in the Domesday Book of 1086, a manuscript record of a survey of much of England and Wales ordered by William the Conqueror. This suggests the name was already in use during the Norman conquest of England in the 11th century.
One of the earliest known bearers of the name was Sir John de Cheney, who lived in the late 12th and early 13th centuries. He served as Sheriff of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire from 1199 to 1201 under King John.
Another notable figure was Sir Thomas Cheney (c. 1485-1558), who served as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports and Constable of Queenborough Castle during the reign of King Henry VIII. He played a significant role in the dissolution of the monasteries in England.
In the 17th century, John Cheney (1582-1668) was an English Puritan minister and member of the Westminster Assembly, which produced the Westminster Confession of Faith, a influential doctrinal statement for Presbyterian and Congregationalist churches.
More recently, Dick Cheney (born 1941) served as the 46th Vice President of the United States under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2009. He was a prominent figure in American politics and played a significant role in shaping the foreign and domestic policies of the Bush administration.
Richard Cheney (1613-1693) was an English philosopher and clergyman who wrote influential works on logic and theology, including "The True Intellectual System of the Universe," which aimed to reconcile reason and revelation.
People
Cheney + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Cheney 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
Cheney: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Cheney?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 322 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Cheney 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 1,064,454 US residents.
Is Cheney a common name?
We classify Cheney as "Very Rare". It ranks above 80% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 333 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Cheney most popular?
The single biggest year for Cheney was 2001, when 31 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Cheney is about 30 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
Is Cheney a female name?
Yes, 62.8% of people registered as Cheney in the SSA data are female. 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.