Chandra
A feminine Sanskrit name meaning "moon" or "shining".
Name Census estimates that about 15,574 living Americans carry the first name Chandra. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Chandra today is around 48 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Chandra births was 1975 (753 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Chandra. 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 Chandra with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Chandra is used almost entirely for girls, the SSA data does show 66 boys registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
16K
~ 1 in 22,008 Americans
Peak year
1975
753 babies that year
Average age
48
years old
1996 SSA rank
#9,216
Tracked since 1935
Census
Chandra in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 19,395 people with the first name Chandra, which placed it at #1,631 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
#1,631
National first-name rank
People counted
19K
19,395 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
6.4
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
38.5% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Chandra
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Chandra is White at 38.5%. The next largest groups are Black (29.9%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (23.9%). 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 Chandra 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 Chandra at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White38.5% · 7,458
- Black or African American29.9% · 5,803
- Asian and Pacific Islander23.9% · 4,631
- Two or more races4.5% · 876
- Hispanic or Latino2.4% · 474
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.8% · 153
Gender
Gender distribution for Chandra
Out of the 17,348 babies given the name Chandra since 1880, 99.6% were registered as female. The name sits firmly on the female side of the spectrum, with only a handful of male registrations across the entire dataset.
Chandra as a male name
- Ranked #9,216 in 1996
- 5 male births in 1996
- Peak: 1976 (9 births)
Chandra as a female name
- Ranked #11,381 in 2023
- 8 female births in 2023
- Peak: 1975 (747 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Chandra leans strongly female. 16,840 people counted with this name were female (86.8%), compared with 2,551 male bearers (13.2%).
Popularity
Chandra: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Chandra from the 1930s through to the 2020s, spanning 10 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1970s, with 6,737 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1970s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Chandra 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 Chandra during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Chandras live
The SSA's state-level files cover 46 states and territories. California, Texas, Georgia recorded the most babies named Chandra, while North Dakota, Maine, Alaska recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 318 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Chandra
Chandra is a given name with origins in the Sanskrit language of ancient India. The name is derived from the word "Chandra" meaning "moon" or "luminous". It is believed to have been in use as a personal name since the Vedic period, which dates back to around 1500-500 BCE.
The name Chandra appears in various Hindu scriptures and texts, most notably in the Vedas, the oldest sacred texts of Hinduism. In the Rig Veda, one of the four canonical sacred texts, Chandra is depicted as the deity or personification of the moon.
One of the earliest recorded individuals with the name Chandra was Chandra Gupta Maurya, who founded the Maurya Empire in ancient India around 321-297 BCE. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential rulers in Indian history and played a crucial role in unifying much of the Indian subcontinent.
Another notable figure with the name Chandra was Chandra Shekhar Azad, an Indian revolutionary who lived from 1906 to 1931. He was a key figure in the Indian independence movement and actively participated in the struggle against British colonial rule.
In the realm of literature, Chandra Bannerjee Divakaruni, an Indian-American author born in 1956, has gained recognition for her works exploring the experiences of South Asian immigrants in the United States.
Chandra Wickramasinghe, a Sri Lankan mathematician and astronomer born in 1939, is best known for his work on the panspermia hypothesis, which suggests that life exists throughout the universe and is distributed by comets and asteroids.
Chandra Bahadur Dangi, a Nepali man born in 1939, was recognized by the Guinness World Records as the shortest adult human ever documented, standing at just 54.6 centimeters (1 foot 9.5 inches) tall.
The name Chandra has been used across various cultures and regions influenced by Sanskrit and Indian traditions, including Southeast Asia, where it has been embraced as a personal name by people of different faiths and backgrounds.
People
Chandra + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Chandra 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
Chandra: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Chandra?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 15,574 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Chandra 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 22,008 US residents.
Is Chandra a common name?
We classify Chandra as "Uncommon". It ranks above 98.2% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 17,348 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Chandra most popular?
The single biggest year for Chandra was 1975, when 753 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Chandra is about 48 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Chandra in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 19,395 people with the name Chandra, or 6.42 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #1,631 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 Chandra 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 Chandra?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Chandra leans strongly female. 16,840 people counted with this name were female (86.8%), compared with 2,551 male bearers (13.2%). 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 Chandra?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Chandra is White at 38.5%. The next largest groups are Black (29.9%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (23.9%). 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 Chandra most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Chandra in the 2020 Census, accounting for 38.5% (7,458 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 Chandra in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Chandra a female name?
Yes, 99.6% of people registered as Chandra 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.
Is Chandra still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Chandra 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 Chandra 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 Chandra?
Want to know how many people have the name Chandra? HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, puts the living-bearer count front and centre.