Cahan
surname · English · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Cahan is a surname, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. It appears chiefly in English and Turkish, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: Irish: see Kane.
- USUnited States1 in 924K◐
- SGSingapore1 in 742K
- ATAustria1 in 915K
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈376 ●
- Sources
- 173 ●
- 1 in 924K ◐
across 4 countries
5.0K records
Official registry-verified
United States
Meaning & origin●
Irish: see Kane.
Sources 1
- A concise dictionary of first names
Attested across 5 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world●
Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | 360 | 4.3K rec. | 1 in 924K | 411 | Cahan | 173 |
| GB United Kingdom | 142 | 163 rec. | — | 7 | Cahan | 21 |
| DE Germany | 103 | 116 rec. | — | — | Cahan | 18 |
| AU Australia | 68 | 68 rec. | — | — | Cahan | 7 |
| CA Canada | 66 | 66 rec. | — | — | Cahan | 12 |
| IN India | 57 | 61 rec. | — | — | Cahan | 3 |
| TR Türkiye | 38 | 40 rec. | — | — | Cahan | 10 |
| PH Philippines | 34 | 31 rec. | — | — | Cahan | 4 |
| NL Netherlands | 23 | 22 rec. | — | — | Cahan | 2 |
| ZA South Africa | 17 | 17 rec. | — | — | Cahan | 1 |
| SG Singapore | 13 | 13 rec. | — | — | Cahan | 2 |
| AT Austria | 7 | 7 rec. | — | — | Cahan | 4 |
Roughly 360 people in United States bear this name (about 1 in 924K). Estimates project the name's share of our records onto national population, so each is only as good as the record base beside it — the Basis column gives that base; rows marked △ rest on fewer records than the estimate itself and are order-of-magnitude at best.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.
Languages●
- English5K56%
- Turkish1.7K19%
- Hindi90110%
- French3103%
- Spanish2082%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| English | 4,982 | 56% |
| Turkish | 1,710 | 19% |
| Hindi | 901 | 10% |
| French | 310 | 3% |
| Spanish | 208 | 2% |
Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.
Other recorded senses●
Cahan is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Azerbaijani, world
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.
Over time●
Show as table
| Year | records |
|---|---|
| 1891 | 4 |
| 1901 | 7 |
| 1911 | 5 |
| 1921 | 7 |
| 1931 | 7 |
| 1941 | 9 |
| 1951 | 12 |
| 1961 | 6 |
| 1971 | 3 |
| 1981 | 4 |
| 1991 | 6 |
FR INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) — 11 years between 1891–1991. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.
Notable people with this name●
- Abraham Cahanb. 1860USAmerican journalist, novelist, short story writer, memoirist (1860-1951)
- Charles Hazlitt Cahanb. 1861CACanadian politician (1861-1944)
- Ya'akov Cahanb. 1881ILIsraeli writer (1881-1960)
- Judah Leib Cahanb. 1881USAmerican Yiddish folklorist
- John Flint Cahanb. 1889CACanadian politician
- Larry Cahanb. 1933CACanadian ice hockey player (1933-1992)
- Patrick Cahanresearcher
- Steven CahanUSresearcher ORCID ID = 0000-0002-4776-3668
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).
Evidence●
Attested in 14 sources across 6 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AZ Azerbaijan | Azerbaijan Ministry of Justice — Civil Registry Name Statistics | — | 418 | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 411 | #54,177 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 384 | #51,024 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 360 | #56,710 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1951 | 12 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1941 | 9 | — |
| GB United Kingdom | NISRA — Baby names Northern Ireland full list (1997–present) | 2025 | 7 | #253 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1931 | 7 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1921 | 7 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1901 | 7 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1991 | 6 | — |
| GB United Kingdom | NISRA — Baby names Northern Ireland full list (1997–present) | 2019 | 6 | #274 |
Reference works 4
- Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (Tom II: C-D)
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia surname 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 2026-09-12 data build · 44 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Cahan?
- We estimate roughly 376 people bear Cahan (counting its spellings and scripts) across 4 countries in our records.
- In which country does Cahan have the most bearers?
- We estimate about 360 people bear Cahan in the United States, more than in any other country in our records, where it is most often spelled cahan.
- What does the name Cahan mean?
- Recorded meaning: Irish: see Kane.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/cahanThe same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use. Bulk access and licensing.
About this data
Data snapshot . Figures are rebuilt periodically and will change.
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, “Cahan”. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.