Meaning & Origin
A male given name from Old English; also a modern nickname for Charles, Chadwick and similar-sounding names.
Chad is a boy's and girl's baby name of Old English origin, an anglicized form of the Anglo-Saxon saint's name Ceadda, of uncertain meaning — possibly related to the Old Welsh cad ("battle"). Saint Chad of Lichfield, the 7th-century Bishop of Mercia, was one of early Christianity's most beloved English figures.
Chad peaked in the U.S. top 25 boys' names in the late 1960s and 1970s. Internet culture's "Chad" meme — depicting an ideal, supremely confident male — gave the name an unexpected second life in online slang, though the name's actual bearers tend to find it more amusing than accurate.