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
Census
Cheney in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 494 people with the first name Cheney, which placed it at #20,791 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
#20,791
National first-name rank
People counted
494
494 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.2
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
66.6% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Cheney
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Cheney is White at 66.6%. The next largest groups are Asian/Pacific Islander (10.9%) and Black (9.3%). 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 Cheney 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 Cheney at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White66.6% · 329
- Asian and Pacific Islander10.9% · 54
- Black or African American9.3% · 46
- Two or more races5.9% · 29
- Hispanic or Latino4.9% · 24
- American Indian and Alaska Native2.4% · 12
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)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Cheney on both sides of the split. Of the 491 people counted with this name, 196 were male (39.9%) and 295 were female (60.1%).
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.
How common was Cheney in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 494 people with the name Cheney, or 0.16 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #20,791 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 Cheney 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 Cheney?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Cheney on both sides of the split. Of the 491 people counted with this name, 196 were male (39.9%) and 295 were female (60.1%). 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 Cheney?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Cheney is White at 66.6%. The next largest groups are Asian/Pacific Islander (10.9%) and Black (9.3%). 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 Cheney most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Cheney in the 2020 Census, accounting for 66.6% (329 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 Cheney in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
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.
Is Cheney still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Cheney 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 Cheney 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 are called Cheney?
For a faster, more casual read, check HowManyOfMe.org — our sister site built around that single question.