Chaïm

given name · Latin script

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

/ʃaim/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Chaïm is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Romania than in any other country, where it is the 59th most common given name. Recorded meaning: From Hebrew חַיִּים (“life”).

rarermore common
  • USUnited States1 in 40K(measured from records)
  • ILIsrael≈1 in 242as חיים
  • QAQatar≈1 in 333as חיים

carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Chaïm itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

Romania (inferred from the name graph)

≈36,000 named חיים, est.

3 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
273 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 40K (inferred from the name graph)

United States

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

ChaïmLatin(measured from records)
חייםHebrew(measured from records)
채임Hangul(measured from records)

2 other spellings are counted as the same name:

Locally spelled חיים in IL Israel, LB Lebanon, RO Romania and 3 more and Chaim in US United States.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

From Hebrew חַיִּים (“life”).

Sources 3

Attested across 20 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Chaïm 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.

Where Chaïm is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
RO Romania#59≈36,000 est.≈1 in 592—חיים7
IL Israel#12≈36,000 est.≈1 in 2427.3Kחיים83
MA Morocco#130≈14,000 est.≈1 in 2.5K—חיים9
US United States—8,3261 in 40K8.3KChaim273
QA Qatar#14≈7,300 est.≈1 in 333—חיים1
BG Bulgaria#269≈5,800 est.≈1 in 1.2K—חיים4
LB Lebanon#41≈5,300 est.≈1 in 1K—חיים3

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: CBS Israel — Family names in Israel, 2017 ("שמות משפחה בישראל 2017"); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex. 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Chaïm is also recorded as 6 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • a separate name2 spellings in the group

    Also written Chaim

  • Arabic given name12 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Morocco, Algeria, Cyprus

    Also written Chaim, Çháïm, Čhãïm, Čhãîm, Çhäïm

  • Spanish given name5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Chaim, Chaím

  • Polish given name2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Poland, United Kingdom, Canada

    Also written Chaim

  • Lithuanian given name3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Lithuania, United States

    Also written Chaim

  • Italian given name2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Italy

    Also written Chaim

2 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Notable people with this name(measured from records)

18501900195020002050Chaïm Soutine, b. 1893Chaïm Perelman, b. 1912Chaïm Wirszubski, b. 1915Chaïm Nissim, b. 1949Chaïm El Djebali, b. 2004

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)

InformalBonjour Chaïm,Hi Chaïm, (English)

A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 6 sources across 2 countries.

Reference works 3

  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Wikipedia given-name 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 Chaïm mean, and where does it come from?
From Hebrew חַיִּים (“life”). Recorded by Wiktionary and Diccionario etimológico de nombres propios and 1 other source.
How do you pronounce Chaïm?
A machine transcription gives /ʃaim/ (IPA) for French.
Is Chaïm a male or female name?
Chaïm 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 Chaïm have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 36 thousand people named חיים in Romania, more than in any other country we hold.
Where is Chaïm most common?
Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Chaïm is densest in the United States — about 1 in 40 thousand people — even though Romania holds more of our records for it.
How common is the name Chaïm?
In the United States, the national register counted 8,326 people named Chaïm in 2020, about 1 in 40 thousand residents.
How common is Chaïm compared with other names?
In Romania, Chaïm is the 59th most common given name of 34,167 given names recorded there.

What do you want to know about Chaïm?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/cha%C3%AFm

The 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, “Chaïm” — the 59th most common given name in Romania. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Chaïm parses inside a full name →