Channa
given name · Latin script
Meaning: The monk Channa, Buddha’s former charioteer, obstinate disciple who was placed under the Brahmadaṇḍa and later attained arahantship (Vin.ii.23ff; D.ii.154; ThagA.i.155)
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/tʃanə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Channa is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Sri Lanka than in any other country.
- LKSri Lanka≈1 in 3K(inferred from the name graph)
- NLNetherlands1 in 46K
- SESweden1 in 138K
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.
- Sri Lanka (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 93 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 3.0K (inferred from the name graph)
≈7,700 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Sri Lanka, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
The monk Channa, Buddha’s former charioteer, obstinate disciple who was placed under the Brahmadaṇḍa and later attained arahantship (Vin.ii.23ff; D.ii.154; ThagA.i.155).
Sources 1
- Dictionary of Pali Proper Names Vol I (A-Dh)
Attested across 28 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Channa 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LK Sri Lanka | ≈7,700 est. | ≈1 in 3K | — | Channa | 11 |
| US United States | 1,108 | 1 in 300K | 1K | Channa | 75 |
| PK Pakistan | ≈890 est. | ≈1 in 264K | — | Channa | 56 |
| NL Netherlands | 374 | 1 in 46K | 374 | — | 2 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈170 est. | ≈1 in 382K | listed | Channa | 55 |
| AU Australia | ≈150 est. | ≈1 in 171K | 1 | — | — |
| SE Sweden | 74 | 1 in 138K | 74 | — | 1 |
| AT Austria | ≈41 est. | ≈1 in 218K | 2 | — | — |
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 — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); Statistik Austria — STATatlas Vornamen WFS (per-name time series 1984–2024); SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present). 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)
Channa 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 pi, A thera who, after a grave illness at Gijjhakūṭa and Sāriputta’s visit, killed himself; the Buddha said he died an arahant (M.iii.263ff.; S.iv.55ff.).
as a nameDictionary of Pali Proper Names Vol I (A-Dh)
In pi, Gotama’s charioteer and companion, who rode with him to the river Anomā and later joined the Order (J.i.54; Mtu.i.156,164,189,233).
as a nameDictionary of Pali Proper Names Vol I (A-Dh)
In pi, A wanderer (paṭicchannaparibbājaka) who visited Ānanda at Sāvatthi and questioned him on the Buddha’s teaching (A.iii.215).
as a nameDictionary of Pali Proper Names Vol I (A-Dh)
In Hindi, chickpea
as a nameA Genealogists Guide to Indian Names A Reference for First Names from India
In Irish, lenited form of canna
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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)
- Channa Wolkowitzb. 1862PLholocaust victim, b. 1862-01-20
- Channa Gildonib. 1923DEChairwoman of the Association of Former Leipzigers in Israel
- Channa Horwitzb. 1932USAmerican artist (1932-2013)
- Channa Bankierb. 1947SESwedish artist (born 1947)
- Channa Keshavab. 2000USresearcher
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)
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 43 sources across 21 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 193 | #100,083 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 130 | #130,610 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 7 | #46,784 |
| NL Netherlands | CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007) | 2007 | 6 | #73,531 |
| 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 Channa mean, and where does it come from?
- The monk Channa, Buddha’s former charioteer, obstinate disciple who was placed under the Brahmadaṇḍa and later attained arahantship (Vin.ii.23ff; D.ii.154; ThagA.i.155). Recorded by Dictionary of Pali Proper Names Vol I (A-Dh).
- What are other forms of the name Channa?
- In the etymology graph, Ann, Anna and Anne are forms of the same name in other languages.
- How do you pronounce Channa?
- A machine transcription gives /tʃanə/ (IPA) for English.
- Is Channa a male or female name?
- Channa is recorded for both men and women. We don't publish a percentage split: a record's gender belongs to the person and is attached to every given name on that record, so names in cultures where a name string also carries a parent's or spouse's given name pick up large cross-gender counts.
- In which country does Channa have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 7.7 thousand people named Channa in Sri Lanka, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled channa.
- How common is the name Channa?
- In the United States, the national register counted 1,108 people named Channa in 2020, about 1 in 300 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Channa?
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/channaThe 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, “Channa”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.