Cheikh
Masculine · “elder”
Cheikh is the Arabic word for an elder, spelled the way French wrote it in Dakar and Saint-Louis. In West Africa it carries a particular weight: it is the title of the founders and leaders of the Sufi brotherhoods that shaped Senegalese Islam, and giving it as a first name honors that lineage directly.
How old is the name Cheikh?
Cheikh first appears in US birth records in 1992 — 33 years ago. The typical Cheikh alive today was born around 2012, making them about 13 years old. About 500 people named Cheikh are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Cheikh most popular?
Cheikh peaked in 2002, reaching #3554 nationally. Today it ranks #4857, 1,303 places below that high. See the whole 2002 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From shaykh to Cheikh
The story of Cheikh
Senegalese Islam is organized around brotherhoods, and the men who founded them are called by the title before their names; the founder of the Mouride order, whose city of Touba draws one of the largest annual pilgrimages in Africa, is known that way. Families name sons for those figures, and over time the title itself became an ordinary given name. It is very common in Senegal, Mali and the Gambia, and it came to American records with West African families in the last few decades.
Meaning
elder; a religious leader or teacher
Arabic shaykh, an old man and by extension a chief, a scholar or the head of a Sufi order. French orthography writes the sound sh as ch and adds a silent h, giving Cheikh, which is standard across francophone West Africa.
How the name formed
- shaykh
- Cheikh
Related forms: شيخ · Sheikh · Şeyh
Pronouncing Cheikh
SHAYK
One syllable, rhyming with make. The ch is a French spelling of sh and the final h is silent; English readers reach for a hard ch and have to be told once.
Nicknames for Cheikh
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
- 1992
- Most boys named
- 202427 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #3554reached in 2002
- Change vs 2024
- −25.9%20 in 2025, from 27
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.
Cheikh in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- شيخ in Arabic — transliteration
- Sheikh in English — spelling variant
- Şeyh in Turkish — same name
Cheikhs among us
people named Cheikh are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 85,404 born in 2025 was named Cheikh
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Cheikh
- #4857
- Cheikh on the 2025 chart
- #903
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Cheikh went to 20 boys in 2025, but Cheick is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 25, which makes it the 903rd most-given boys’ name of the year — 3,954 places above the chart.
- Cheikh20
- Cheick5
About 1 boy in 68,323 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 85,404 for Cheikh 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
The Nicasio test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Cheikh's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Nicasio climbed just as high around 1957, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Nicasio's path sketches the road Cheikh is walking now.
Cheikh 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
Cheikh beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Cheikh in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The meaning is documented and dignified, and can be stated in two words.
- It is instantly recognized across West Africa and the wider Muslim world.
- Cheikhou is a warm ready extension for use at home.
- English readers say the ch as in church, which is not the sound at all.
- Sheikh is the commoner English spelling, so records may diverge within a family.
- It is a title as well as a name, which some people outside the tradition will query.
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Cheikh
Masculine · #4857 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Cheikhs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 500 people named Cheikh are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Cheikh?
- Cheikh is the most-used spelling in US records — 20 of the 25 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Cheick.
- How popular is the name Cheikh in 2025?
- Cheikh ranks #4857 among US boy names in 2025, with 20 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Cheikh?
- About 1 in every 85,404 US boys born in 2025 was named Cheikh — 20 in all.
- Will my child share the name Cheikh with classmates?
- Cheikh will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Cheikh
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Carlyle#4857 · Russ#4857 · Hercules#4857 · Marcial#4857 · Lauro#4857 · Marin#4857 · Gil#4857 · Aloysius#4857
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Cheikh? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Cheikh and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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