Chosen
Masculine · Old English roots · “chosen”
Chosen is given to both — 2,248 boys and 546 girls since 1880. See Chosen as a girl nameSee other names given to both
Chosen is the everyday English word, unchanged: the past participle of a verb that reaches back to Old English cēosan, "to choose." It sits in one of the most quoted lines of the King James Bible — "many are called, but few are chosen" — and arrived on the American baby-name charts only in this century. Two syllables, no spelling puzzle, said the same way by anyone who has ever used the word.
How old is the name Chosen?
Chosen first appears in US birth records in 2003 — 22 years ago. Chosen is overwhelmingly a brand-new baby name right now — most Chosens are still in diapers. About 2,200 people named Chosen are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Chosen most popular?
Chosen peaked in 2025, reaching #555 nationally. Today it ranks #555, exactly where it peaked. See the whole 2025 chart.
Chosen appears on this list:
Where it comes from
From cēosan (Old English, "to choose") to Chosen
The story of Chosen
Chosen is an English word taken up whole as a given name. The word itself is old: cēosan in Old English, chesen in Middle English, settling into the modern chosen by the time English Bibles were being printed, where it carries some of the most repeated phrases in the language — a chosen people, a chosen generation, many are called but few are chosen. As a name it belongs to a young and distinctly American practice of naming children directly from words of blessing and promise, alongside Blessing, Miracle, Promise and Legend. Its record on the charts is short and rising, and almost all of it is recent.
Meaning
chosen, selected, picked out
This is the ordinary English participle, so the meaning is simply the word's own. Its root, Old English cēosan, is shared with German kiesen and with the older Germanic vocabulary of choosing and testing.
How the name formed
- cēosanOld English, "to choose"
- chesenMiddle English
- chosenmodern English participle
- Chosengiven name
Pronouncing Chosen
CHOH-zən
Exactly like the ordinary word: stress on the first syllable, a soft second one. There is no competing pronunciation to correct.
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
- 2003
- Most boys named
- 2025540 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #555reached in 2025
- Change vs 2024
- +16.9%540 in 2025, from 462
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.
Chosen in other languages
Strongest US states over the last decade: Georgia, Texas, Florida.
Chosens among us
people named Chosen are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 3,163 born in 2025 was named Chosen
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Chosen
- #555
- Chosen on the 2025 chart
- #301
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Chosen went to 540 boys in 2025, but Chozen is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 1,111, which makes it the 301st most-given boys’ name of the year — 254 places above the chart.
- Chozen571
- Chosen540
About 1 boy in 1,537 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 3,163 for Chosen 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 Lenny test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Chosen's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Lenny climbed just as high around 1961, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Lenny's path sketches the road Chosen is walking now.
Chosen is climbing fast right now. Steep climbs tend to come with steep descents — the quicker a name arrives, the more firmly it belongs to its moment.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Chosen is headed
Chosen is on a steep climb — if the curve holds, 2030 could see around 101% more babies given the name than today. Its history is short or jumpy, though, so read this as a sketch rather than a promise.
Low confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Chosen beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Chosen in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Spelled and pronounced correctly on first hearing by any English speaker — it is a word already in everyone's vocabulary.
- No variant spellings compete with it, so there is nothing to clarify over the phone or on a form.
- Sits within a recognized family of American word names — Blessing, Promise, Legend — so it is read as a name, not a mistake.
- Word history documented in an unbroken line from Old English through the Middle Ages to the present.
- Because it is a plain word, it will sometimes be heard as a statement rather than a name — including by relatives and, later, by siblings. Some families like that reading; it is worth knowing you cannot switch it off.
- The scriptural phrases behind it are well known, so in many rooms the name will be understood as a declaration of faith. That is a feature for some parents and an unwanted assumption for others.
- No short forms have settled into use yet, so a nickname will be homemade rather than inherited.
- Nearly everyone carrying it is very young, which means few adults model it — though that is true of every name at the start of its run, and the word itself is centuries old.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Chosen to the vote.
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What they receive
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Chosen
Masculine · Old English roots · #555 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Chosens are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,200 people named Chosen are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Chosen?
- Chosen is one of 2 recorded spellings. Chozen is the more common one — 571 births in 2025 against 540 for Chosen.
- How popular is the name Chosen in 2025?
- Chosen ranks #555 among US boy names in 2025, with 540 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Chosen?
- About 1 in every 3,163 US boys born in 2025 was named Chosen — 540 in all.
- Will my child share the name Chosen with classmates?
- Chosen will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Chosen
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Armando#556 · Ledger#553 · Drew#553 · Saul#557 · Ariel#558 · Jeffrey#552 · Emir#551 · Morgan#559
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Chosen? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Chosen and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
Compare side by sideIn a hurry? Just pick a winner — one tap, no sign-up, and you see how everyone else voted.
Or jump into a head-to-head
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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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