Chip
given name · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Chip is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. Recorded meaning: from ME chip, chippe ‘a small piece of wood chipped or cut off’; first attested Isabella Chippes 1275.
- CACanada≈1 in 63K(inferred from the name graph)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 92K
- USUnited States1 in 123K
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.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 384 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 31K (inferred from the name graph)
≈21,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Iceland, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
from ME chip, chippe ‘a small piece of wood chipped or cut off’; first attested Isabella Chippes 1275
Sources 1
- A Dictionary of English Surnames
Attested across 13 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Chip 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | ≈21,000 est. | ≈1 in 67K | — | Chip | 9 |
| US United States | 2,694 | 1 in 123K | 2.7K | Chip | 384 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈710 est. | ≈1 in 92K | listed | Chip | 80 |
| CA Canada | ≈600 est. | ≈1 in 63K | 1 | Chip | 100 |
| UG Uganda | ≈510 est. | ≈1 in 85K | listed | — | 5 |
| CH Switzerland | ≈140 est. | ≈1 in 60K | 3 | Chip | 6 |
| SG Singapore | ≈98 est. | ≈1 in 63K | — | Chip | 28 |
| IS Iceland | ≈11 est. | ≈1 in 31K | — | Chip | 4 |
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 — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames). 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)
Chip is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, A small piece broken from a larger piece of solid material.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Polish, chip, microchip, computer chip, integrated circuit (small electronic device made up of multiple interconnected electronic components such as transistors, resistors, and capacitors)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Danish, a chip (one-piece circuit or hybrid device containing a circuit and another device)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Italian, chip (small electronic component)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Hungarian, superseded spelling of csip
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)
- Chip Hourihanb. 1901USAmerican film director and producer
- Chip Zienb. 1947USAmerican actor
- Chip Fieldsb. 1951USAmerican singer and actress (born 1951)
- Chip Wilsonb. 1955CACanadian businessman
- Chip Hooperb. 1958USAmerican tennis player
- Chip Pickeringb. 1963USAmerican politician
- Chip Kellyb. 1963USAmerican football coach
- Chip Kiddb. 1964USAmerican graphic designer (born 1964)
- Chip Royb. 1972USAmerican politician (born 1972)
- Chip Johannessenb. 2000USAmerican television producer
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).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 30 sources across 16 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 179 | #106,101 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 165 | #107,669 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 151 | #108,734 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 3 | #154,370 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 3
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
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 are other forms of the name Chip?
- In the etymology graph, Carlos, Carol and Chris are forms of the same name in other languages; it is recorded as a short form of Charles and Christopher.
- What does the name Chip mean, and where does it come from?
- from ME chip, chippe ‘a small piece of wood chipped or cut off’; first attested Isabella Chippes 1275 Recorded by A Dictionary of English Surnames.
- Is Chip a male or female name?
- Chip is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- In which country does Chip have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 21 thousand people named Chip in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled chip.
- How common is the name Chip?
- In the United States, the national register counted 2,694 people named Chip in 2020, about 1 in 123 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Chip?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/chipThe same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use; a free API key gives 1,000 requests a day, and bulk access is licensed separately.
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, “Chip”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.