# Chess (surname)

Source: https://namelineage.com/surname/chess/  
Publisher: Name Lineage. Counts from the US Census Bureau; origin and etymology from Wiktionary; bearers from Wikidata. Data updated 2026-11-11.

A surname.

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Origin | not recorded |
| Type | place, taken from where an ancestor lived or came from |
| People in the US (2010 Census) | 1,743 |
| US rank (2010) | 16,481 of 162,253 |
| How often | about 1 in every 177,135 people |
| Change since 2000 | -5.6% (1,846 in 2000) |
| Pronunciation | not recorded |
| Variant spellings | none recorded |

## Etymology

The river name is a back-formation from Chesham, a town at the head of the river.

## Who carries it

Share of people named Chess in the 2010 US Census by the Census's own race and ethnicity groups. The Census suppresses a share when the count behind it is small.

| Group | Share |
|---|---|
| White (not Hispanic) | 68% |
| Black (not Hispanic) | 27% |
| Hispanic or Latino (any race) | 1.7% |
| Asian and Pacific Islander | 0.8% |
| American Indian and Alaska Native | 0.4% |
| Two or more races | 1.8% |

## Where

Wikidata records people named Chess in the United States.

## People named Chess

- Phil Chess, American record executive (1921–2016)

## Similar surnames

Chasse, Chiesa, Cheeks, Cook, Cox, Casey, Chase, Case, Cooke, Cash, Couch, Ceja.

## How to read these numbers

A Census count is people alive and counted in 2010, not births, and names occurring fewer than 100 times are not published at all. Ethnicity shares are the Census's own categories.