Chancellor
A masculine given name meaning "keeper or clerk of records and official seal".
Name Census estimates that about 2,570 living Americans carry the first name Chancellor. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Chancellor today is around 23 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Chancellor births was 2001 (131 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Chancellor. 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
2.6K
~ 1 in 133,367 Americans
Peak year
2001
131 babies that year
Average age
23
years old
2024 SSA rank
#4,078
Tracked since 1916
Census
Chancellor in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 1,992 people with the first name Chancellor, which placed it at #7,599 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
#7,599
National first-name rank
People counted
2.0K
1,992 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.7
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
44.7% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Chancellor
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Chancellor is White at 44.7%. The next largest groups are Black (38.0%) and Two or More Races (9.2%). 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 Chancellor 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 Chancellor at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White44.7% · 890
- Black or African American38.0% · 757
- Two or more races9.2% · 184
- Hispanic or Latino4.6% · 92
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.6% · 51
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.9% · 18
Gender
Gender distribution for Chancellor
Out of the 2,623 babies given the name Chancellor since 1880, 99.8% were registered as male. The name sits firmly on the male side of the spectrum, with only a handful of female registrations across the entire dataset.
Chancellor as a male name
- Ranked #4,078 in 2024
- 26 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2001 (131 births)
Chancellor as a female name
- Ranked #16,182 in 2018
- 5 female births in 2018
- Peak: 2018 (5 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Chancellor leans strongly male. 1,934 people counted with this name were male (97.2%), compared with 55 female bearers (2.8%).
Popularity
Chancellor: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Chancellor from the 1910s through to the 2020s, spanning 8 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2000s, with 810 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
Chancellor 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 Chancellor during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Chancellors live
The SSA's state-level files cover 18 states and territories. Texas, North Carolina, Georgia recorded the most babies named Chancellor, while Tennessee, Michigan, New York recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 49 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Chancellor
The name Chancellor is derived from the Latin word 'cancellarius', which means a keeper of records or an usher. It originated in ancient Rome, where it referred to officials who stood by the latticed screens or 'cancelli' in courtrooms and kept records of legal proceedings.
In medieval Europe, the term Chancellor was used for a high-ranking official in the government or a nobleman's household, responsible for issuing official documents and seals. The Chancellor was often the head of the chancery, a secretarial office that drafted official letters and documents.
One of the earliest known references to the name Chancellor can be found in the works of the Roman historian Cassius Dio, who lived in the 3rd century AD. He mentions a 'cancellarius' who served under the Roman emperor Septimius Severus.
The name gained prominence during the Middle Ages, when the position of Chancellor became an important one in the royal courts of Europe. Notable historical figures with this name include:
1. Thomas Becket (1119-1170), the Archbishop of Canterbury and Chancellor of England under King Henry II.
2. Pierre de Brézé (c. 1412-1465), a French nobleman who served as Chancellor of France under King Charles VII.
3. Sir Thomas More (1478-1535), an English lawyer and philosopher who served as Lord Chancellor of England under King Henry VIII.
4. Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898), the first Chancellor of the German Empire, who played a pivotal role in the unification of Germany in the 19th century.
5. Konrad Adenauer (1876-1967), the first Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany after World War II, who oversaw the country's economic recovery and reintegration into the international community.
Throughout history, the name Chancellor has been associated with positions of power, authority, and administration, reflecting its origins as a title for high-ranking officials and advisors to rulers and governments.
People
Chancellor + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Chancellor 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
Chancellor: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Chancellor?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 2,570 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Chancellor 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 133,367 US residents.
Is Chancellor a common name?
We classify Chancellor as "Rare". It ranks above 94.7% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 2,623 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Chancellor most popular?
The single biggest year for Chancellor was 2001, when 131 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Chancellor is about 23 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Chancellor in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 1,992 people with the name Chancellor, or 0.66 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #7,599 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 Chancellor 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 Chancellor?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Chancellor leans strongly male. 1,934 people counted with this name were male (97.2%), compared with 55 female bearers (2.8%). 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 Chancellor?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Chancellor is White at 44.7%. The next largest groups are Black (38.0%) and Two or More Races (9.2%). 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 Chancellor most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Chancellor in the 2020 Census, accounting for 44.7% (890 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 Chancellor in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Chancellor a male name?
Yes, 99.8% of people registered as Chancellor 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 Chancellor still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Chancellor 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 Chancellor 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 the name Chancellor?
Find out how many Americans are named Chancellor on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org — a quick modern estimate with the living-bearer count front and centre.