Chip
Masculine · “a small piece cut off”
Chip is an American nickname with a specific logic — a chip off the old block, meaning a son who resembles his father.
How old is the name Chip?
Chip first appears in US birth records in 1942 — 83 years ago. The typical Chip alive today was born around 1965, making them about 60 years old. About 2,900 people named Chip are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Chip most popular?
Chip peaked in 1962, reaching #593 nationally. Today it ranks #4249, 3,656 places below that high. See the whole 1962 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From cipp to Chip
The story of Chip
The phrase is old — a chip carries the grain of the block it came from — and American usage turned it into a nickname for a boy named after his father, alongside Junior and Trey. It was registered as a full name in real numbers in the 1950s and 1960s, when American naming was unusually willing to make nicknames legal. It appears in the records for both sexes, overwhelmingly for men.
Meaning
a small piece cut off
From Old English cipp, a small piece cut from a larger one; the phrase about a chip off the old block is recorded from the seventeenth century and is the reason the word became a name for a son.
How the name formed
- cipp
- chip
- Chip
Related forms: Chipper
Pronouncing Chip
CHIP
One syllable. There is no variation in English.
Nicknames for Chip
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
- 1942
- Most boys named
- 1962171 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #593reached in 1962
- Change vs 2023
- −25.0%24 in 2025, from 32
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.
Chip in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Chipper in English — related form
Chips among us
people named Chip are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 71,170 born in 2025 was named Chip
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Elwyn test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Chip's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Elwyn climbed just as high around 1912, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Elwyn's path sketches the road Chip is walking now.
Chip 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
Chip beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Chip in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- An ordinary English word, so nobody has to be taught to say or spell it.
- Four letters and one syllable — as short as a name gets.
- The phrase behind it is warm and easy to explain.
- It is an everyday noun with several senses, including a snack and a microchip.
- It reads as a nickname to most people, which may matter on a document.
- It is strongly associated with one mid-century American generation.
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What they receive
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Chip
Masculine · #4249 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Chips are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,900 people named Chip are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Chip in 2025?
- Chip ranks #4249 among US boy names in 2025, with 24 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Chip?
- About 1 in every 71,170 US boys born in 2025 was named Chip — 24 in all.
- Will my child share the name Chip with classmates?
- Chip will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Chip
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Guadalupe#4249 · Denny#4249 · Hughes#4249 · Erling#4249 · Rodrick#4249 · Elric#4249 · Ron#4249 · Wright#4249
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Chip? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Chip and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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Cast your vote
Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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