Chandra
Feminine · “moon”
Chandra is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 17,283 girls against 66 boys since 1880.
Chandra is the moon. In Sanskrit it is both the word and the name of the moon god, and it is one of the oldest divine names still in ordinary use anywhere.
How old is the name Chandra?
Chandra first appears in US birth records in 1935 — 90 years ago. The typical Chandra alive today was born around 1976, making them about 49 years old. About 16,500 people named Chandra are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Chandra most popular?
Chandra peaked in 1975, reaching #307 nationally. See the whole 1975 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From chandra to Chandra
The story of Chandra
Chandra is an ancient Sanskrit name in continuous use across South Asia, given to both sexes and appearing in dozens of compounds — Chandragupta, Ramachandra, Chandrika. It entered American use in the 1960s and 1970s, when Sanskrit names became visible in the West, and it rose sharply through that period, peaking in the mid-1970s.
Meaning
moon, shining
From the Sanskrit chandra, 'moon' or 'shining', from a root meaning to shine. Chandra is a deity in the Vedas and one of the navagraha, the nine planetary influences of Hindu astrology. The word is transparent to speakers of Sanskrit-derived languages.
How the name formed
- chandra
- Chandra
Related forms: चन्द्र · Chandra · Candra
Pronouncing Chandra
CHAN-druh
Two syllables, stress on the first. Sanskrit and Hindi give the first vowel a fuller quality.
Nicknames for Chandra
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1935
- Most girls named
- 1975747 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #307reached in 1975
- Change vs 2018
- +33.3%8 in 2023, from 6
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Chandra in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- चन्द्र in Sanskrit — transliteration
- Chandra in Hindi — same name
- Candra in Indonesian — related form
Chandras among us
people named Chandra are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Chandra sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- The meaning is concrete, transparent and about as attractive as a meaning gets.
- It has thousands of years of continuous documented use across South Asia.
- Two clean syllables with no pronunciation risk in English.
- It is given to both sexes in South Asia, so it does not signal sex there.
- It is closely dated to the 1970s in American records.
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Chandra
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Chandras are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 16,500 people named Chandra are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Chandra in 2025?
- Chandra is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Chandra with classmates?
- Chandra will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More C names
The most-given names starting with C, all years combined.
Carol#2239 · Cynthia#1013 · Catherine#313 · Christine#1272 · Carolyn#1222 · Christina#770 · Charlotte#2 · Cheryl#4352
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Chandra? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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