How popular is the baby name Chantelle in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Use the popularity graph and data table below to find out! Plus, see all the blog posts that mention the name Chantelle.

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Popularity of the baby name Chantelle


Posts that mention the name Chantelle

Name quotes #71: Winnie, Monica, Tane Mahuta

double quotation mark

Fashion model Winnie Harlow, born Chantelle Brown-Young, upon being asked where the name “Winnie Harlow” came from:

It’s literally just from Winnie the Pooh! I was a big fan growing up, and it was actually from a joke with some friends. We were on the phone with some boys, I grabbed the phone from one of my girls, and was like, “Don’t give my friends attitude!” And the boys asked, “Who is this?” I looked over, my friend was wearing a Winnie the Pooh T-shirt, so I said my name was Winnie. When I started working, it felt kind of natural to just continue with it. Harlow comes from Jean Harlow; I’m a really big Marilyn Monroe fan, but I didn’t want to use Monroe, because that felt cheesy. But Jean Harlow was one of Marilyn’s really big career inspirations, so I took the name Harlow. I do love my actual name a lot. At the beginning, I tried to go by Chantelle Winnie, but then decided to keep Winnie Harlow and Chantelle separate. My family calls me Chantelle.

Monica Lewinsky, on “the Monica Lewinsky scandal” of early 1998:

“The scandal was named after me,” she said. “Any time that this has been referenced, every single day, every single day in the past 20 years — so it may not be a direct reference to me, but because the investigation and the scandal have my name, I’m then, therefore, attached to it.”

[…]

“Bill Clinton didn’t have to change his name,” Lewinsky said, when Oliver asked if she considered changing hers. “Nobody’s ever asked him, did he think he should change his name.”

From an article comparing the relative popularity of twin professional hockey players Daniel and Henrik Sedin by looking at the B.C. baby name data:

[T]he name Henrik magically first started appearing on B.C. baby announcements in 2007, which, maybe not so coincidentally, was also the year following the Sedins’ breakout season.

[…]

Interestingly, the largest spike — a total of 13 baby Henriks — came in 2011, which coincides with the Canucks’ march to the Stanley Cup Final.

From an article about America’s first exascale supercomputer:

The supercomputer, dubbed Aurora — which [Secretary of Energy Rick] Perry joked was named after his three-legged black lab Aurora Pancake — is scheduled to be fully operational by the end of 2021, as the DOE attempts to keep pace with China in a supercomputing arms race.

(Turns out the dog’s nickname is “Rory.” I posted a quote about another named computer, the Lisa, last year.)

From an article about the divorce of Lady Davina Windsor, 30th in line to the British throne, from husband Gary “Gazza” Lewis, a Maori sheep shearer:

Lady Davina gave birth to a daughter, Senna Kowhai, who is now aged eight, and a son, Tane Mahuta, six. He was named after the giant Tane Mahuta kauri tree in the Waipoua Forest, in New Zealand.

(Here’s more on the famous Tane Mahuta tree. The name Kowhai was also inspired by New Zealand tree.)

Distinctively Canadian first names

Here are the most distinctively Canadian first names by decade, according to Canadian website The 10 and 3:

  • 2010s: Zainab and Linden
  • 2000s: Gurleen and Callum
  • 1990s: Simran and Mathieu
  • 1980s: Chantelle and Darcy
  • 1970s: Josee and Stephane
  • 1960s: Giuseppina and Luc
  • 1950s: Heather and Giuseppe
  • 1940s: Heather and Lorne
  • 1930s: Isobel and Lorne
  • 1920s: Gwendoline and Lorne

Did you know that Canada’s love of “Lorne” comes from the Marquess of Lorne, the British nobleman who served as Governor General of Canada from 1878 to 1883? To see more explanations, and also more names per decade, check out the source article.

The name I’m most curious about is Josée from the 1970s. It had a “Canadian factor” of 634.6 — larger than any other name in the study — but also had no explanation, and I can’t figure out the influence. Does anyone have a guess?

Source: Gord, Sheila, Graham and Beverley? The Most Distinctively Canadian Names Are Not What You’d Expect

Where did the baby name Chantel come from in 1957?

chantels, music, 1950s, doowop

Though The Chantels were technically the second African-American girl-group (after the Bobbettes) to achieve chart success, they missed being first by just a matter of weeks.

The quintet of Catholic choir girls — Arlene, Lois, Renee, Jackie, and Sonia — hit the scene in the latter half of 1957 with two singles: “He’s Gone,” released in August, and “Maybe,” released in December.

“Maybe” ended up becoming a hit in early 1958, reaching #2 on the R&B charts and #15 on the Hot 100. Here are the Chantels singing (well, lip-syncing) “Maybe” on The Dick Clark Show in March:

The word “Chantels” never ended up in the U.S. baby name data, but the non-plural form Chantel started popping up in 1957:

  • 1959: 5 baby girls named Chantel
  • 1958: unlisted
  • 1957: 5 baby girls named Chantel [debut]
  • 1956: unlisted
  • 1955: unlisted

The spelling Chantell debuted in 1958.

And look what happened in the early ’60s:

1961196219631964
Chantel5125645
Chantell..720
Chantelle..31*30
Shantel..11*19
Chantele..9*7
Shantell..6*12
Shantelle...9*
*Debut

I’m not sure what caused that explosion of variants in 1963. The Chantels’ next-biggest hit, “Look In My Eyes” (1961), is probably too early to account for it. The answer might be the 1962 movie If a Man Answers, which featured a character named Chantal played by Sandra Dee.

So where did the Chantels get their name? From a Catholic parish in Bronx — but not their own, St. Anthony of Padua. Here’s the story:

The girls were performing at a dance at St. Francis [sic] de Chantal parish in Throgs Neck, got a terrific hand from the audience, and had a brainstorm for the name of their group.

They simply altered Chantal — a French place name meaning “stony” — to create Chantel.

Do you like the name Chantel? Do you like it more or less than Chantal?

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