Chaff
surname · English · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Chaff is a surname, most frequently recorded in the United States. It appears chiefly in English and French, written in the Latin script.
- USUnited States1 in 2.5M◐
- SKSlovakia1 in 127K
- AUAustralia1 in 844K
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
Meaning & origin
No verified etymology recorded for this name yet — the entries below are drawn from usage statistics and the name graph.
Sources 3
- A dictionary of surnames
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- The Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world●
| Country | Share of this name | |
|---|---|---|
| US United States | 1,040 | 65% |
| FR France | 206 | 13% |
| GB United Kingdom | 121 | 8% |
| AU Australia | 79 | 5% |
| SK Slovakia | 17 | 1% |
≈1,463 recorded bearers across the countries shown (a sample of the full distribution).
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.
Languages●
- English1.2K77%
- French20713%
- Welsh664%
- Arabic282%
- Slovak171%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| English | 1,237 | 77% |
| French | 207 | 13% |
| Welsh | 66 | 4% |
| Arabic | 28 | 2% |
| Slovak | 17 | 1% |
Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.
Evidence●
Attested in 6 sources across 4 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 112 | #137,816 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 34 | #136,957 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 16 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1951 | 11 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1961 | 7 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1911 | 5 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1981 | 4 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1941 | 4 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1901 | 4 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1991 | 3 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1971 | 3 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1931 | 3 | — |
Reference works 1
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-09-03 data build · 16 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Chaff?
- Our records include 1,463 bearers of Chaff across 5 countries — a sample of the full distribution.
- In which country does Chaff have the most bearers?
- Chaff is most frequently recorded in the United States.
Query this name via API
curl https://nelma-api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/chaffThe same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use. Bulk access and licensing.
About this data
Data snapshot . Figures are rebuilt periodically and will change.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Chaff”. Data snapshot 2026-08-31.