Chardonnay
Feminine · “Named for a Burgundy village”
Chardonnay is a village in southern Burgundy before it is a grape, and a grape long before it was a girl's name. Three syllables with a French finish, it carries a story of its own: in the late twentieth century DNA showed the aristocrat of white wines had a peasant parent.
How old is the name Chardonnay?
Chardonnay first appears in US birth records in 1985 — 40 years ago. The typical Chardonnay alive today was born around 1997, making them about 28 years old. About 600 people named Chardonnay are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Chardonnay most popular?
Chardonnay peaked in 1991, reaching #2550 nationally. See the whole 1991 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Cardonnacum to Chardonnay
The story of Chardonnay
Chardonnay is a small village in the Mâconnais in southern Burgundy, and the grape that made its name famous was long assumed to have a noble ancestry. In 1999 a team of grape geneticists at the University of California, Davis, showed that Chardonnay is a cross of Pinot and Gouais Blanc, a humble, heavy-cropping variety with no reputation at all. Chardonnay became one of the most widely planted white grapes in the world, and in the late twentieth century American families began to give the word to daughters.
Meaning
Named for a Burgundy village, usually traced to a Latin word for thistles
The village name is usually derived from a Latin place name meaning 'place of thistles', from the word that also gives English cardoon.
How the name formed
- Cardonnacum
- Chardonnay
Related forms: Chardonnay
Pronouncing Chardonnay
shar-duh-NAY
Said like the wine, with the stress on the last syllable.
Nicknames for Chardonnay
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
- 1985
- Most girls named
- 199148 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2550reached in 1991
- Change vs 2013
- 0.0%5 in 2018, from 5
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.
Chardonnay in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Chardonnay in French — same name
Chardonnays among us
people named Chardonnay 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
Chardonnay 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
- Everyone can say it, because everyone has heard the word.
- A real place name with a documented history.
- Very rare as a given name, so a Chardonnay is unlikely to share it.
- Nearly everyone will think of wine first, and a child will hear the jokes at school and again at twenty-one.
- In Britain the name became shorthand for a certain showy style after a television character of the early two-thousands, and British listeners may still hear that.
- It is a word before it is a name, so some people will treat it as a novelty; others will simply find it bright and unusual.
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What they receive
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Chardonnay
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Chardonnays are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 600 people named Chardonnay are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Chardonnay in 2025?
- Chardonnay is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Chardonnay with classmates?
- Chardonnay 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 Chardonnay? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Chardonnay and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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