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

Distinctively Canadian first names

Maligne Lake, Canada

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

Image: Adapted from Sunrise at Maligne lake 2 by Sergey Pesterev under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Where did the baby name Chantel come from in 1957?

The Chantels' album "We Are the Chantels" (1958)
The Chantels album

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 the 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?

Sources: