Chas
Masculine · “free man”
Chas is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 3,213 boys against 10 girls since 1880.
Chas began as an abbreviation rather than a nickname. Chas. with a full stop was the standard written short form of Charles for centuries, and enough families dropped the stop and kept the letters for it to become a name.
How old is the name Chas?
Chas was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Chas alive today was born around 1923, making them about 102 years old. About 1,300 people named Chas are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Chas most popular?
Chas peaked in 1880, reaching #220 nationally. Today it ranks #12008, 11,788 places below that high. See the whole 1880 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From karl to Chas
The story of Chas
English used a fixed set of written abbreviations for common names — Chas. for Charles, Geo. for George, Thos. for Thomas, Wm. for William — and they appear constantly in registers, ledgers and gravestones. Chas was said aloud as well as written, and nineteenth-century American families registered it as the legal name in its own right. It appears in the records through the century and peaked around 1885.
Meaning
free man
Through Charles, from the Germanic karl, 'free man' — a man of standing below the nobility. The word became a title through Charlemagne, whose name was so dominant that karl itself became the Slavic word for king.
How the name formed
- karl
- Charles
- Chas.
Related forms: Carlos · Carlo · Karl
Pronouncing Chas
CHAZ
One syllable, the s said as a z. Some families said it as CHASS instead; both are recorded.
Nicknames for Chas
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
- 1880
- Most boys named
- 198975 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #220reached in 1880
- Change vs 2016
- −50.0%5 in 2025, from 10
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.
Chas in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Carlos in Spanish — related form
- Carlo in Italian — related form
- Karl in German — related form
Chass among us
people named Chas are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 341,615 born in 2025 was named Chas
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Chas
- #12008
- Chas on the 2025 chart
- #901
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Chas went to 5 boys in 2025, but Chaz is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 27, which makes it the 901st most-given boys’ name of the year — 11,107 places above the chart.
- Chaz22
- Chas5
About 1 boy in 63,262 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 341,615 for Chas itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
Fashion outlook
Chas sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Chas beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Chas in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Charles stands behind it as one of the most-used men's names in European history.
- It records a genuine and now largely forgotten written convention.
- One syllable, brisk and distinctive.
- It began life as an abbreviation, which some people will read it as.
- Two pronunciations of the final consonant are recorded.
- It is strongly period-coded to the nineteenth century.
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Chas
Masculine · #12008 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Chass are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,300 people named Chas are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Chas?
- Chas is one of 2 recorded spellings. Chaz is the more common one — 22 births in 2025 against 5 for Chas.
- How popular is the name Chas in 2025?
- Chas ranks #12008 among US boy names in 2025, with 5 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Chas?
- About 1 in every 341,615 US boys born in 2025 was named Chas — 5 in all.
- Will my child share the name Chas with classmates?
- Chas will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Chas
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Garfield#12008 · Lew#12008 · Barney#12008 · Dewitt#12008 · Granville#12008 · Cicero#12008 · Willam#12008 · Solon#12008
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Chas? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Chas and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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