Chelsea

Where the name comes from

• Old English (via an English place name)
  Probably "chalk landing place," meaning a riverside wharf where chalk or limestone was unloaded.
  cealc ("chalk") + hȳth ("landing place, harbor")
  Chelsea started as the name of a place, not a person. It is a district of London on the north bank of the River Thames. Its earliest written forms include Caelichyth (767, about 1,260 years ago) and Celchyth (789). The Domesday Book of 1086, about 940 years ago, spells it Chelchede. The name probably referred to chalk shipped in from somewhere else, since there is no chalk in the area. One theory is that it came from Chalk, near Gravesend in Kent. In the 1500s and 1600s the place was usually spelled Chelsey. The spelling Chelsea became common in the early 1700s. Most American Chelseas were named in the late 20th century, and the name came from the place.

Chelsea across traditions

• English history (place). The first known mention of Chelsea is from about 1,240 years ago. Papal envoys held a church synod (council) there at that time. Over the centuries Chelsea grew from a riverside village into a well-known district of London.
• American naming. As a girls' name in the US, Chelsea first entered the top 1,000 in 1969. It was in the top 100 from 1984 to 1998. Many women born in the 1980s and 1990s carry the name. Popularity: peaked in the 1990s, highest US rank No. 15 in 1992.

Who carried it

• Chelsea Clinton (born 1980): Daughter of President Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton. She is one of the best-known Americans with the name.

Forms in other languages

Chelsey, Chelsie, Chelsi

Chelsea in letter-number systems

Hebrew, Greek and other traditions gave every letter a number, and read meaning into the totals. These are the counts, computed; the readings are inside the Innerverse.