Chea
surname · Latin script
Meaning: A surname from Khmer
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 22 countries · latest register: INEC, 2024
Chea is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Cambodia than in any other country.
- KHCambodia≈1 in 160(inferred from the name graph)
- MYMalaysia≈1 in 19K
- KEKenya≈1 in 41Kfew records
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Cambodia (inferred from the name graph)
- Record sources
- 276 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 161 (inferred from the name graph)
≈110,000 people, est.
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Cambodia, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)A surname from Khmer.
Cited for this meaning 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Chea counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KH Cambodia | ≈110,000 est. | ≈1 in 161 | 1 | — | 3 |
| US United States | 4,492 | 1 in 74K | 4.9K | Chea | 276 |
| MY Malaysia | ≈1,900 est. | ≈1 in 19K | — | Chea | 38 |
| KE Kenya | ≈1,400 est. | ≈1 in 41K | — | Chea | 12 |
| FR France | ≈1,000 est. | ≈1 in 68K | 161 | — | 5 |
| EC Ecuador | ≈450 est. | ≈1 in 41K | 1 | — | 5 |
| SG Singapore | ≈110 est. | ≈1 in 54K | — | Chea | 29 |
Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000); A comprehensive list of popular Cambodian baby names along with their meanings and gender.; INEC — Visualizador de Nombres y Apellidos, per-token query API (1900–2024). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses
(measured from records)Chea is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Swahili, Applicative form of -cha
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Italian, kea (Nestor notabilis)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In grt, to win
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Galician, flood
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name
(measured from records)- Chea Lavb. 2003KHbadminton player
- Emilio Alfredo CafferataPEnot in their usual namePeruvian stomatologist
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them
(machine-generated)Evidence
(measured from records)33 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 22 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 4.9K | #6,609 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 4.5K | #7,411 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 3.4K | #8,850 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1981 | 230 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1991 | 161 | — |
| EC Ecuador | INEC — Visualizador de Nombres y Apellidos, per-token query API (1900–2024) | — | 62 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1971 | 45 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1951 | 5 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1961 | 4 | — |
| EC Ecuador | INEC — Visualizador de Nombres y Apellidos, per-token query API (1900–2024) | 2013 | 3 | — |
| EC Ecuador | INEC — Visualizador de Nombres y Apellidos, per-token query API (1900–2024) | 1972 | 3 | — |
| EC Ecuador | INEC — Visualizador de Nombres y Apellidos, per-token query API (1900–2024) | 2014 | 2 | — |
Reference works 4
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Chea mean, and where does it come from?
- A surname from Khmer. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- In which country does Chea have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 110 thousand people named Chea in Cambodia, more than in any other country we hold.
- How common is the name Chea?
- In the United States, the national register counted 4,492 people named Chea in 2010, about 1 in 74 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Chea?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/cheaThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Chea”. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.