Champion

surname · Latin script

Meaning, in English: from ONFr campiun/campion, central OFr champiun/champion ‘combatant; one who fights for another’; first attested Herbert campion 1148 Winton (Ha)

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

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

Champion is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.

rarermore common
  • AUAustralia≈1 in 13K(inferred from the name graph)
  • GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 14K
  • USUnited States1 in 19K

carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

United States (measured from records)

17,527 people, 2010

Sources
418 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 8.2K (inferred from the name graph)

New Zealand, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

from ONFr campiun/campion, central OFr champiun/champion ‘combatant; one who fights for another’; first attested Herbert campion 1148 Winton (Ha)

Sources 1

  • A Dictionary of English Surnames

Attested across 7 languages in the etymology graph.

How Champion is read(measured from records)

Champion is one spelling over 2 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.

  • English74%

    from ONFr campiun/campion, central OFr champiun/champion ‘combatant; one who fights for another’; first attested Herbert campion 1148 Winton (Ha)

    as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames

    An ongoing winner in a game or contest.

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

    different form of Campion (i)

    as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]

  • French14%

    soit de (Le) Champion, nom de localités françaises, soit du surnom d’un combattant en champ clos.

    as a nameDictionnaire des noms de famille du Canada français. Anthroponymie et généalogie. 2e édition

The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.

Often considered alongside

Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Champion, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.

From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Champion 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 Champion is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States—17,5271 in 19K18KChampion418
FR France—≈7,800 est.≈1 in 8.6K1K—8
GB United Kingdom—≈4,700 est.≈1 in 14K—Champion207
IT Italy—≈2,200 est.≈1 in 28K—Champion12
AU Australia—≈1,900 est.≈1 in 13K—Champion159
NZ New Zealand#887≈600 est.≈1 in 8.2K—Champion49

17,527 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. 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: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000). 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)

Champion is also recorded as 2 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Hindi surname3 spellings in the group

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

    Languages: Hindi, Urdu

    Also written Châmpîôñ

  • Thai surname10 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Thailand, Laos, Peru

    Languages: Thai, Lao

    Also written แชมเปี้ยน, Champian, แชมป์เปี้ยน, Champions, Champean

64 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)

1600180020002200Jacques Champion de Chambonnières, b. 1602Étienne Marie Antoine Champion de Nansouty, b. 1768Émile Champion, b. 1879Malcolm Champion, b. 1883Jean Champion, b. 1914Marge Champion, b. 1919Gower Champion, b. 1919John C. Champion, b. 1923Will Champion, b. 1978Jack Champion, 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)

FormalDear Colleague,
InformalHello,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 34 sources across 19 countries.

Official registers attesting Champion
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010201018K#2,058
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000200017K#1,953
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020202017K#2,086
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)19611.4K—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)19511.4K—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)19411.3K—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)19711.2K—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)19811K—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)19311K—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)19911K—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)19211K—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)1901876—

Reference works 4

  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Wikipedia surname tokens
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
  • jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)

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 Champion mean, and where does it come from?
from ONFr campiun/campion, central OFr champiun/champion ‘combatant; one who fights for another’; first attested Herbert campion 1148 Winton (Ha) Recorded by A Dictionary of English Surnames.
How do you pronounce Champion?
A machine transcription gives /tʃæmpiən/ (IPA) for English.
How common is the name Champion?
In the United States, the national register counted 17,527 people named Champion in 2010, about 1 in 19 thousand residents.
How common is Champion compared with other names?
In New Zealand, Champion is the 887th most common surname of 87,225 surnames recorded there.
In which country does Champion have the most bearers?
In the United States, the national register counted about 18 thousand people named Champion, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled champion.

What do you want to know about Champion?

Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.

Please leave out anyone's personal details (see Privacy).

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

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, “Champion” — the 887th most common surname in New Zealand. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Champion parses inside a full name →