Châtelain
surname · Latin script
Meaning: French surname/generic name meaning 'castellan, castle keeper'; standard form contrasted with older Chastellain
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/ʃatlɛ̃/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Châtelain is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- USUnited States1 in 215K(measured from records)
- CHSwitzerland1 in 9.7K
- BEBelgium1 in 52K
carrying the name, as counted by each country's national register. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- Sources
- 228 (measured from records)
- 1 in 9.7K (inferred from the name graph)
1,549 people, 2010
Highest-authority source
Switzerland
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Chatelain in US United States, CH Switzerland, BE Belgium and 1 more.
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)
French surname/generic name meaning 'castellan, castle keeper'; standard form contrasted with older Chastellain.
Sources 1
- Tên Họ Người Việt Nam
Attested across 22 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Châtelain 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | 1,549 | 1 in 215K | 1.6K | Chatelain | 228 |
| CH Switzerland | 862 | 1 in 9.7K | 862 | Chatelain | 30 |
| AR Argentina | 230 | 1 in 198K | 230 | — | 1 |
| BE Belgium | 224 | 1 in 52K | 224 | Chatelain | 16 |
| ES Spain | 43 | 1 in 1.2M | 43 | — | 7 |
| NL Netherlands | 41 | 1 in 421K | 41 | Chatelain | 16 |
1,549 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; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register); INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007). 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)
Châtelain is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In French, someone who lives in a castle
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In French, de châtelain, surnom ironique
as a nameDictionnaire des noms de famille du Canada français. Anthroponymie et généalogie. 2e édition
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)
- René-Théophile Châtelainb. 1790FRFrench journalist
- Auguste Châtelainb. 1838CHSwiss physician and translator (1838–1923)
- Léo Châtelainb. 1839CHSwiss architect (1839-1913)
- Louys Châtelainb. 1877CHSwiss architect and watercolorist
- Renée Pelletb. 1905CHnot in their usual nameSwiss politician
- Hélène Châtelainb. 1935FRFrench actress (1935-2020)
- Jean-Quentin Châtelainb. 1959CHSwiss actor
- Alex Châtelainb. 1978CHSwiss ice hockey player (born 1978)
- Aurélie Châtelainb. 1982FRFrench politician
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 5 sources across 2 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 94 | #11,616 |
| BE Belgium | Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register) | 2008 | 25 | #42,191 |
Reference works 3
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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 Châtelain mean, and where does it come from?
- French surname/generic name meaning 'castellan, castle keeper'; standard form contrasted with older Chastellain. Recorded by Tên Họ Người Việt Nam.
- How do you pronounce Châtelain?
- A machine transcription gives /ʃatlɛ̃/ (IPA) for French.
- In which country does Châtelain have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 1.5 thousand people named Châtelain, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled chatelain.
- Where is Châtelain most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Châtelain is densest in Switzerland — about 1 in 9.7 thousand people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Châtelain?
- In the United States, the national register counted 1,549 people named Châtelain in 2010, about 1 in 215 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Châtelain?
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/ch%C3%A2telainThe 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, “Châtelain”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.