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Boys' name · 242,471 recorded births

Chad

#1,699 in the US in 2025

Where Chad stands

United States register · 1880–2025

#1,699boys’ names · US 2025

Chad was the 1,699th most registered boys' name in the United States in 2025, on 96 births.

peak 1972 · 13,392188019532025

Its moment was 1972, when 13,392 babies were given it. In 1 of the years between, the name fell under the 5-birth floor and the registrar published nothing — those years are the marks along the base of the chart, not gaps in the name's use.

SOURCE·US Social Security Administration, national baby-name data·Public domain. retrieved from the Internet Archive's 2026 snapshot of ssa.gov (ssa.gov refuses automated requests); files unmodified. SSA lists a name only if it was given to at least 5 babies of that sex that year.·REVIEWED JUL 2026

#1,699US rank, 2025 (boys)
96US births in 2025
#25its best US rank, in 1972
1972peak year — 13,392 births
240,728US births since 1914
663NZ births since 1971
41E&W births, 2019–2025
Saved in this browser only — no account, nothing sent anywhere.

How Chad's figures are worked out

  1. Counts come straight from the registrars: the US Social Security Administration (1880–2025) and the New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs (1900–2025). Nothing is scraped from another names site. The SSA files are the agency's own, retrieved from the Internet Archive's 2026 snapshot of ssa.gov (ssa.gov refuses automated requests); files unmodified.
  2. Ranks are computed against every name in that year's file, not just the ones this site publishes pages for — otherwise a rank would flatter every name we happen to list.
  3. The curve is drawn on births per 100,000 of that sex, not raw counts. Raw counts across eras are misleading: far more births were registered in 1957 than in 1890, so a flat count is a falling share.
  4. The reporting floor. Each registrar publishes a name only once it clears a threshold — 5 births of that sex in the US, 10 in New Zealand. Expressed as a share that threshold is itself a curve, and it is drawn on every chart here as the shaded band along the base.
  5. A missing year is a suppressed value, never a zero. Where the registrar published nothing, this site prints “below floor” or “<5”, the curve is broken rather than drawn across the gap, and the missing years are marked on the floor line. Chad was under the floor in 1 year of its US record.
share per 100,000 = births ÷ all births of that sex that year × 100,000
reporting floor (share) = 5 ÷ all births of that sex that year × 100,000

Full methodology →

Chad in the United States

188019001920194019601980200020200.0413827
Births per 100,000 of that sex, so eras compare fairly. The shaded band is the 5-birth reporting floor — under it the registrar publishes nothing, so a line that stops has left the record, not fallen to zero. Chad in the United States, 1880–2025
boysgirls

Between 2016 and 2025 the name has been falling — down 63% as a share of boys' births.

SOURCE·US Social Security Administration, national baby-name data·Public domain. retrieved from the Internet Archive's 2026 snapshot of ssa.gov (ssa.gov refuses automated requests); files unmodified. SSA lists a name only if it was given to at least 5 babies of that sex that year.·REVIEWED JUL 2026

Chad in New Zealand

In New Zealand, Chad has been registered 663 times since 1971, peaking in 1988 with 43 births. It did not clear the DIA's 10-birth reporting floor in 2025.

1900192019401960198020002020NOT PUBLISHED — BELOW THE 10-BIRTH FLOOR0.090180
Births per 100,000 of that sex, so eras compare fairly. The shaded band is the 10-birth reporting floor — under it the registrar publishes nothing, so a line that stops has left the record, not fallen to zero. Chad in New Zealand, 1900–2025

SOURCE·NZ Department of Internal Affairs, births by first name·CC BY 4.0. DIA lists a name only if it was given to at least 10 babies of that sex that year.·REVIEWED JUL 2026

Chad in England & Wales

In England and Wales, Chad was registered 41 times between 2019 and 2025, peaking in 2019 with 13 births. It ranked #4,274 for boys in 2025 on 4 births. Across those years it has been falling.

2020NOT PUBLISHED — BELOW THE 3-BIRTH FLOOR0.02.14.3
Births per 100,000 of that sex, so eras compare fairly. The shaded band is the 3-birth reporting floor — under it the registrar publishes nothing, so a line that stops has left the record, not fallen to zero. Chad in England and Wales, 2019–2025

Seven years is a window, not a history. Unlike the American and New Zealand series this one cannot show you a name's arrival or its long decline — ONS publishes the full list only from 2019. England and Wales only: Scotland and Northern Ireland publish separately and are not counted here.

SOURCE·Office for National Statistics, baby names in England and Wales·Open Government Licence v3.0. ONS redacts any name given to 2 or fewer babies of that sex that year, under s40 of the Freedom of Information Act.·REVIEWED JUL 2026

Decade by decade in the US

US rank and births at each decade markSSA · JUL 2026
YearRankBirths
1920#2,76510
1930#3,0228
1940#1,39723
1950#83666
1960#494255
1970#516,628
1980#3910,142
1990#854,351
2000#2361,453
2010#545463
2020#1,240150

<5 = the SSA published no figure for that year. It is a suppressed value, not a zero.

Where in the United States

The states that registered Chad most often since 1914. These are lifetime totals, so they track state population as much as local taste — a name common in Wyoming will never out-count California.

StateBirths
California17,018
Ohio16,349
Texas14,360
Michigan13,050
Pennsylvania11,862
Illinois10,791
Minnesota9,991
Indiana9,564
Wisconsin9,213
New York8,539

Questions about Chad

How popular is the name Chad?

Chad ranked #1,699 for boys in the United States in 2025, on 96 births registered with the Social Security Administration.

When was Chad most popular?

Chad peaked in 1972, when 13,392 babies in the United States were given the name.

Is Chad rising or falling?

Measured as a share of all boys' births, Chad has been falling between 2016 and 2025 (-63%).

Same sex, peaking within a few years of 1972, at a comparable scale. Not a taste engine — this is arithmetic on peak years, which is why it will occasionally hand you something unfashionable that is nonetheless exactly of the period.

SOURCE·US SSA (1880–2025) + NZ DIA (1900–2025) birth registrations·ranks and shares computed from the source files, see method·REVIEWED JUL 2026

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Amit Sharma

Auckland real-estate agent and marketer. Builds free, sourced data tools.