Chesney

Chesney is the 7,933rd most common surname in the United States, shared by 4,011 people at the 2020 census. That is about one person in 74,500.

By the numbers

People: 4,011
Rank: 7,933rd
How common: 1 in 74,500
Per 100,000: 1.3

Where the name comes from

Origin Anglo-Norman

From Norman place names meaning “oak grove” (cognate to French chênaie), from Picard quesne, from Vulgar Latin *cassanus, probably from cel-gau kassanos (“oak”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Who bears the name

How people with the surname Chesney described their own race and Hispanic origin at the 2020 census:

White, not Hispanic 85.5%
Black, not Hispanic 6.9%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 3.5%
Hispanic or Latino 3.1%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.7%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.4%

Notable people called Chesney

Kenny Chesney (born 1968)American country musician
Marion Chesney (1936–2019)British writer
Alan Chesney (born 1949)Olympic field hockey player
Francis Rawdon Chesney (1789–1872)British Army general

People named Chesney with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).

Surnames like Chesney

Also a first name

Chesney has been given to 2,821 American babies as a first name since 1970, peaking in 2005. See it as a given name.

Try it on yourself

Source: US Census Bureau, Frequently Occurring Surnames, 2020. The Census describes the file as the surnames borne by 100 or more people; rarer names are not published. The line is not quite exact, and 617 published names come in under it, the smallest at 92 people. Race and Hispanic origin are self-reported. Rates are worked out against the 298.9 million people the file's own figures are calculated on, which is fewer than the census counted in all: the difference is everyone whose surname was too rare to publish.