Chubby
A descriptive name referring to someone with a rounded or plump physique.
Name Census estimates that about 12 living Americans carry the first name Chubby. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Chubby today is around 63 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Chubby births was 1962 (9 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Chubby. 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 Chubby. It is among the rarest names in the SSA records.
People living today
12
~ 1 in 28,562,862 Americans
Peak year
1962
9 babies that year
Average age
63
years old
1963 SSA rank
#4,137
Tracked since 1962
Popularity
Chubby: popularity over time
Babies born per year
Decades
Chubby 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 Chubby during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
| Decade | Male | Female | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1960s | 14 | 0 | 14 |
Origin
Meaning and history of Chubby
The name Chubby is an English nickname derived from the adjective "chubby" which means plump or stout. It likely originated in the late 16th or early 17th century when it was common to use descriptive nicknames and physical attributes to distinguish individuals.
While the name Chubby itself does not have a direct linguistic origin, it is related to the Middle English word "chubbe" meaning a thick or stout person. This word can be traced back to the Old English "cybb" which meant a lump or rounded mass.
One of the earliest recorded uses of Chubby as a given name is found in the records of St. Michael's Church in Cornhill, London where a Chubby Dawson was baptized in 1617. Another early example is Chubby Howell, born in 1642 in Gloucestershire, England.
In the 18th century, Chubby became a popular nickname and pet name for plump children and infants. The novelist and playwright Henry Fielding used the name Chubby for a character in his 1749 novel "Tom Jones".
One of the most famous individuals with the name Chubby was Charles Stevens (1698-1732), better known as Chubby Stevens. He was an English boxer and champion pugilist from London who stood just over 5 feet tall but weighed nearly 200 pounds.
Another notable Chubby was Cuthbert John Collingwood (1826-1908), nicknamed Chubby Collingwood. He was an English barrister and amateur cricketer who played first-class cricket for Oxford University and Kent County Cricket Club in the 1840s and 1850s.
In the 20th century, the jazz musician Chubby Jackson (1918-2003), born Cornelius Alonzo Jackson, was a popular bassist and vocalist who performed with Woody Herman, Benny Goodman, and Lionel Hampton's bands.
Chubby Checker (born 1941), whose real name is Ernest Evans, is an American singer-songwriter best known for popularizing the Twist dance craze with his 1960 hit cover of "The Twist".
People
Chubby + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Chubby 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
Chubby: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Chubby?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 12 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Chubby 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 28,562,862 US residents.
Is Chubby a common name?
We classify Chubby as "Very Rare". It ranks above 32.3% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 14 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Chubby most popular?
The single biggest year for Chubby was 1962, when 9 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Chubby is about 63 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
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 Chubby in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Chubby a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Chubby 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 Chubby still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Chubby 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 Chubby 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.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only covers names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files do not have a published Census demographic snapshot. In those cases, the page still shows the SSA trend, gender history, and state data.
How many people are named Chubby?
Want to know how many people have the name Chubby? HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, puts the living-bearer count front and centre.