Chantee
Feminine name meaning "little songbird" derived from the French verb 'chanter'.
Name Census estimates that about 271 living Americans carry the first name Chantee. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Chantee today is around 44 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Chantee births was 1987 (21 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Chantee. 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
271
~ 1 in 1,264,776 Americans
Peak year
1987
21 babies that year
Average age
44
years old
1998 SSA rank
#14,564
Tracked since 1965
Census
Chantee in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 298 people with the first name Chantee, which placed it at #29,601 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
#29,601
National first-name rank
People counted
298
298 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Black or African American
58.1% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Chantee
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Chantee is Black at 58.1%. The next largest groups are White (16.8%) and Two or More Races (9.1%). 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 Chantee 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 Chantee at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Black or African American58.1% · 173
- White16.8% · 50
- Two or more races9.1% · 27
- Hispanic or Latino8.4% · 25
- Asian and Pacific Islander6.4% · 19
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.3% · 4
Popularity
Chantee: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Chantee from the 1960s through to the 1990s, spanning 4 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1980s, with 129 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 1980s peak, Chantee remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Chantee 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 Chantee during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Chantees live
Origin
Meaning and history of Chantee
The name Chantee is believed to have its origins in the French language, derived from the verb "chanter," which means "to sing." It is considered a feminine variant of the name Chantal, which itself is a French form of the Latin name "Cantiana."
In its earliest days, the name Chantee was likely used as a descriptive name for someone who sang or had a melodious voice. It may have been a nickname or a surname before becoming a given name in its own right.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Chantee dates back to the 13th century, when a noblewoman named Chantee de Montfort was mentioned in a historical document from the region of Normandy, France.
In the 16th century, a French poet and playwright named Chantee de La Vigne gained recognition for her works, which often celebrated the beauty of nature and the joys of love.
During the Renaissance period, Chantee de Medici, a member of the powerful Medici family in Florence, Italy, was known for her patronage of the arts and her support of various artists and scholars.
In the 18th century, Chantee Duval, a French actress and dancer, achieved fame for her performances in the theaters of Paris. She was also known for her influential role in the development of early ballet.
Another notable figure with the name Chantee was Chantee Bouvier, a 19th-century French explorer and naturalist who traveled extensively throughout Africa and documented her observations of the continent's flora and fauna.
While the name Chantee has its roots in French culture, it has been adopted and used across various regions and cultures over time, often as a tribute to its melodic sound and association with singing and the arts.
People
Chantee + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Chantee 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
Chantee: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Chantee?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 271 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Chantee 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 1,264,776 US residents.
Is Chantee a common name?
We classify Chantee as "Very Rare". It ranks above 78.1% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 291 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Chantee most popular?
The single biggest year for Chantee was 1987, when 21 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Chantee is about 44 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Chantee in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 298 people with the name Chantee, or 0.10 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #29,601 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 Chantee 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 Chantee?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Chantee leans strongly female. 294 people counted with this name were female (97.0%), compared with 9 male bearers (3.0%). 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 Chantee?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Chantee is Black at 58.1%. The next largest groups are White (16.8%) and Two or More Races (9.1%). 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 Chantee most often in the Census?
Black is the largest reported group for people named Chantee in the 2020 Census, accounting for 58.1% (173 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 Chantee in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Chantee a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Chantee 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 Chantee still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Chantee 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 Chantee 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 Chantee as a first name?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.