Chantal
given name · Latin script
Meaning: From the French place name Chantal, probably from a Celtic root meaning 'stone' or 'rock'
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ʃɑ̃tal/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Chantal is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in France than in any other country. In Cameroon it is the 56th most common given name.
- FRFrance≈1 in 573(inferred from the name graph)
- BEBelgium≈1 in 711
- CMCameroon≈1 in 923
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.
- France (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 374 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 573 (inferred from the name graph)
≈120,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
France, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
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 the French place name Chantal, probably from a Celtic root meaning 'stone' or 'rock'.
Sources 1
- Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Chantal 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FR France | #106 | ≈120,000 est. | ≈1 in 573 | 232K | Chantal | 374 |
| CM Cameroon | #56 | ≈30,000 est. | ≈1 in 923 | — | Chantal | 28 |
| CA Canada | #368 | ≈19,000 est. | ≈1 in 2K | 1 | Chantal | 224 |
| BE Belgium | #70 | ≈16,000 est. | ≈1 in 711 | 6 | Chantal | 128 |
| ZA South Africa | — | ≈14,000 est. | ≈1 in 4K | — | Chantal | 68 |
| US United States | — | 10,546 | 1 in 32K | 11K | Chantal | 345 |
| CH Switzerland | #246 | ≈5,200 est. | ≈1 in 1.6K | — | Chantal | 103 |
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: INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Statbel — Prénoms nouveau-nés (newborns). 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)
Chantal 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 French, French name inspired by the surname of Saint Jeanne-Françoise de Chantal; Latin origin.
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
In French, de (Le) Chantal, nom de plusieurs localités du sud de la France.
as a nameDictionnaire des noms de famille du Canada français. Anthroponymie et généalogie. 2e édition
In French, Probablement lié à « chant »; interprété ici comme la recherche du chant de Dieu.
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
In French, Du lieu-dit bourguignon Chantal; rattaché à une racine chaldéenne liée au roseau. Évoque aussi souffrance, manque et changement.
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
In French, Du toponyme Chantal; popularisé par saint Jean-François de Sales.
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
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)
- Chantal Goyab. 1942FRFrench actress and singer
- Chantal Mouffeb. 1943BEBelgian post-marxist political theorist (born 1943)
- Chantal Thomasb. 1945FRFrench writer
- Chantal Laubyb. 1948FRFrench actress, comedian, film director and screenwriter
- Chantal Akermanb. 1950BEBelgian film director, screenwriter, and educator (1950–2015)
- Frédérique Vidalb. 1964FRnot in their usual nameFrench biochemist and politician
- Vanessa Paradisb. 1972FRnot in their usual nameFrench singer, model and actress
- Chantal Kreviazukb. 1973CACanadian pop singer
- Chantal Janzenb. 1979NLDutch actress and television presenter
- Chantal Strandb. 1987CACanadian 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)
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 98 sources across 57 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024) | 2018 | 232K | #2,670 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 11K | #2,374 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024) | 1963 | 245 | #710 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 33 | #2,374 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 19 | — |
| CA Canada | Statistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01) | 2024 | 7 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1989 | 7 | — |
| BE Belgium | Statbel — Prénoms nouveau-nés (newborns) | 2000 | 6 | #1,061 |
| CA Canada | Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender | 2023 | 1 | #2,333 |
Reference works 7
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
- 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
- How do you pronounce Chantal?
- A machine transcription gives /ʃɑ̃tal/ (IPA) for French.
- What does the name Chantal mean, and where does it come from?
- From the French place name Chantal, probably from a Celtic root meaning 'stone' or 'rock'. Recorded by Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education).
- What are other forms of the name Chantal?
- In the etymology graph, Chantel, Chantelle and Shantel are forms of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Chantal have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 118 thousand people named Chantal in France, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled chantal.
- Is Chantal a male or female name?
- Chantal is a female 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.
- How common is the name Chantal?
- In the United States, the national register counted 10,546 people named Chantal in 2020, about 1 in 32 thousand residents.
- How common is Chantal compared with other names?
- In France, Chantal is the 106th most common given name of 754,146 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Chantal?
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/chantalThe 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, “Chantal” — the 106th most common given name in France. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.