Chaim
From Hebrew chayyim, a word for life, grammatically plural, as if one life were too small to fill the name. In Poland it stays rare and male only: most people here have never met a Chaim.
Chaim Pronunciation
Chaim is pronounced KHAH-eem (/ˈxaim/).
What Chaim means
Where Chaim comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Chaim comes from Hebrew, from chayyim, a word for life. The form is grammatically plural, a plural of fullness, as if a single life were too small to hold the name. There are no diminutives here, no softened variants. The name stands as it is.
In Jewish usage it sits close to a blessing, the wish for life said over the newborn and the dying alike. When a person fell gravely ill, older custom sometimes added Chaim to the name, an appeal for more years.
The name reached far in the last century. Chaim Weizmann, the chemist, became the first president of Israel in 1949. The Hebrew poet Chaim Nachman Bialik gave it a place in modern verse.
In a Polish school register the name is rare, plain among the Piotrs and Annas. A child who carries it carries one Hebrew word: życie.
How many people are named Chaim
1 in 133414 men in Poland is named Chaim. 160 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #2551 among male names.
Chaim as a middle name
Chaim is a first name for 160 men in Poland and a middle name for another 53, a 75/25 split. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 1030th, between Bradley (53) and Emeka (53).
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#1028 Bautista53
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#1029 Bradley53
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#1030 Chaim53
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#1031 Emeka53
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#1032 Guido53