How popular is the baby name Chakakhan 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 Chakakhan.

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Popularity of the baby name Chakakhan


Posts that mention the name Chakakhan

Where did the baby name Tarralyn come from in 2004?

Contestant Tarralyn Ramsey on the singing competition "Born to Diva" (2003)
Tarralyn Ramsey on “Born to Diva

The name Tarralyn popped up in the U.S. baby name data for the first and only time in the early 2000s:

  • 2006: unlisted
  • 2005: unlisted
  • 2004: 5 baby girls named Tarralyn [debut]
  • 2003: unlisted
  • 2002: unlisted

Similar names like Taralyn and Taralynn were most popular during the ’80s…so why did the spelling Tarralyn suddenly emerge in 2004?

Because of singer Tarralyn Ramsey, the winner of VH1’s single-season singing competition Born to Diva, which aired from April to May, 2003.

Five of the eight episodes consisted of auditions held in each of five cities: Miami, New York, Atlanta, Philadelphia, and London. The city-wide winners (Tomey Sellars, Sasha Allen, Tarralyn Ramsey, Towanda Cofield, and Eno Uffort, respectively) then attended a week-long “Diva Boot Camp” in NYC. Finally, music executives whittled the field down to three finalists: Tomey, Tarralyn, and Towanda.

Online voting for the winner will begin on May 11 and will conclude during the opening moments of VH1’s live “VH1 Divas Duets” special on Thursday, May 22. A few minutes later, all of America — including the three finalists themselves — will learn the name of music’s next superstar Diva, who will then perform a song live onstage.

At the Diva Duets concert, which took place at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Tarralyn got the chance to sing alongside headliners such as Whitney Houston, Beyoncé, Jewel, Chaka Khan, and Ashanti.

After the win, Tarralyn was featured in magazines like People, Seventeen, Ebony, and Jet. This print coverage would have helped draw attention to the specific spelling of her name.

What are your thoughts on the name Tarralyn? (Which spelling do you prefer?)

Sources: Born to Diva – VH1.com, About – Tarralyn Ramsey, Tarralyn Ramsey – Wikipedia, VH1 is Born to Diva – Daily Double, SSA

Image: Screenshot of Born to Diva

Where did the baby name Chakakhan come from in 1975?

Album "Rufus featuring Chaka Khan" (1975)
“Rufus featuring Chaka Khan” (1975)

When Grammy-winning singer Chaka Khan was born in Chicago in 1953, her name was Yvette Marie Stevens.

During her teens, Yvette “met a Yoruba priest who gave her a new name…based on her orishas, or guiding spirits.” Her new names, in order, were Chaka, Adunne, Aduffe, Yemoja, Hodarhi, and Karifi.

A few years later, she married for the first time and took her husband’s surname, Khan.

Hence, the stage name Chaka Khan.


Chaka joined the funk band Rufus in 1972.

In 1975, they released their fourth studio album, Rufus featuring Chaka Khan, which included the popular single “Sweet Thing.”

That year and the next, the compound name Chakakhan appeared in the U.S. baby name data:

  • 1977: unlisted
  • 1976: 16 baby girls named Chakakhan
  • 1975: 21 baby girls named Chakakhan [debut]
  • 1974: unlisted
  • 1973: unlisted

Very likely these parents wrote the name with the space and the capital “K,” but it’s not rendered that way in the data because the SSA strips out things like spaces and internal capitalization.

The baby name Chaka also became more popular, but only for baby girls (many of whom were probably given Khan as a middle name):

Girls named ChakaBoys named Chaka
19778716
1976147 (rank: 899th)20
197512018
197415*18
1973.18
*Debut

It has since dropped off the list entirely for both genders.

Chaka Khan eventually left Rufus and began a solo career, and in 2011 she was given the 2,440th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Source: Ollison, Rashod D. “Through the Fire.” Sun [Baltimore] 28 Oct. 2003: 1E.