Given name & surname · also Middle English
Chew
“gill”
Chew is a surname with more than one origin.
Meaning & origin
What it means
As an English surname, Chew goes back to Old English *cēo, meaning “gill.”
Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Where it comes from
Chew has more than one origin: as an English surname, it comes from Middle English cho; as a Chinese surname, it comes from Hokkien.
Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
How it developed
From Middle English cho, from Old English *cēo (“gill”).
Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
The story
Published U.S. birth records include this spelling as early as 1919. This is the earliest published observation available here, rather than a date for the name’s origin.
From dated birth records
Chew through the years
- Babies since 1880
- 5
- 5 boys · 0 girls
- Most popular year
- 1919
- 5 babies
- 2025
- 0
- Outside the ranked list
- 2021–25 vs 2016–20
- —
- Too few births to compare
By the numbers
The most recent published U.S. birth count for boys is 5 in 1919. Later missing counts do not mean the name went unused. Published U.S. population figures for this spelling include 146 as a first name in 2020; 8,455 as a surname in 2020.
From Social Security birth records and U.S. Census name counts for this exact spelling. Other spellings are counted separately.
Similar names
If you love Chew, these share its style, era, origin or sound, from outside its own family.
Ewell
“river”
>99% boys
Errett
“prosperity” · “advice, wisdom”
>99% boys
Chester
“from the camp of the soldiers”
>99% boys
Etheridge
“noble ruler”
>99% boys
Crawley
“crow”
>99% boys
Elworth
“enclosure”
>99% boys
Brownlow
“brown”
>99% boys
Burnham
“stream”
>99% boys