Chae
surname · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/ˈtʃaɪ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Chae is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in South Korea than in any other country, where it is the 44th most common surname. Recorded meaning: Borrowed from Korean 채(蔡) (Chae).
- KRSouth Korea1 in 393as 채(measured from records)
- USUnited States1 in 34Kas Cha
- KPNorth Korea≈1 in 2.8K
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 Chae 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.
- South Korea (measured from records)
- Sources
- 363 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 2.8K (inferred from the name graph)
131,757 named 채, 2015
Highest-authority source
North Korea, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled 채 in KR South Korea and Cha 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)
Borrowed from Korean 채(蔡) (Chae).
Sources 1
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Chae 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KR South Korea | #44 | 131,757as 채 | 1 in 393 | 206K | 채 | 157 |
| CN China | — | ≈23,000 est. | ≈1 in 62K | — | Chae | 32 |
| US United States | — | 9,732as Cha | 1 in 34K | 10K | Cha | 363 |
| KP North Korea | #235 | ≈9,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.8K | 7 | Chae | 22 |
| BR Brazil | — | 542as Cha | 1 in 391K | 542 | — | 4 |
| UY Uruguay | — | 371as Cha | 1 in 9.1K | 371 | — | — |
| JM Jamaica | — | ≈48 est. | ≈1 in 59K | — | Chae | 6 |
131,757 people counted by KOSIS 2015 Census — surname population with hanja variants, 2015. 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: KOSIS 2015 Census — surname population with hanja variants; KOSIS — 2015 census surnames; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public); Wikidata humans by citizenship — given & family names. 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)
Chae 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 Welsh, aspirate mutation of cae (“field”)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Irish, lenited form of cae
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In tsu, vegetable
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In cdo, wife and concubine
as a wordDictionary of the Foochow Dialect
In cdo, sorrow, grief
as a wordDictionary of the Foochow Dialect
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)
- Chae Je-gongb. 1720joseon-era Korean scholar and politician (1720-1799)
- Chae Man-shikb. 1902KRSouth Korean writer (1902-1950)
- Chae Shi-rab. 1968KRSouth Korean actress (1968-)
- Esther K. Chaeb. 1971USAmerican actress
- Chae Ji-Hoonb. 1974KRSouth Korean short track speed skater
- Chae Jung-anb. 1977KRSouth Korean actress, singer (b. 1977)
- Chae Min-seob. 1981KRSouth Korean actress
- Chae Young-inb. 1981KRSouth Korean actress
- Hyung-wonb. 1994KRnot in their usual nameSouth Korean singer
- Chae Seo-jinb. 1994KRSouth Korean actress
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)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 32 sources across 19 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| KR South Korea | KOSIS — 2015 census surnames | 2015 | 132K | #46 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 3K | #10,263 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 2.6K | #11,914 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 2K | #13,848 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 32 | #142,633 |
| KP North Korea | Wikidata humans by citizenship — given & family names | — | 2 | #51 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 5
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- 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 Chae mean, and where does it come from?
- Borrowed from Korean 채(蔡) (Chae). Recorded by Wiktionary.
- How do you pronounce Chae?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈtʃaɪ/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Chae have the most bearers?
- In South Korea, the national register counted about 132 thousand people named 채, more than in any other country we hold.
- How common is the name Chae?
- In South Korea, the national register counted 131,757 people named 채 in 2015, about 1 in 393 residents.
- How common is Chae compared with other names?
- In South Korea, Chae is the 44th most common surname of 14,133 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Chae?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/chaeThe 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, “Chae” — the 44th most common surname in South Korea. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.