Chaise comes from the French word for chair or carriage and is used as a stylish modern name variant of Chase.
Chaise is a variant spelling of Chase, a name that entered English from the Old French verb chacier — to hunt — carried across the Channel with the Norman Conquest of 1066. For several centuries "chase" functioned primarily as an occupational or topographical surname, denoting either a huntsman or someone who lived near a hunting ground. As surnames migrated into given-name use during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Chase made the transition naturally, particularly in the United States where surnames-as-first-names became a robust naming tradition.
The Chaise spelling adds an intriguing French overlay. In modern French, chaise means "chair" — most famously encountered in chaise longue ("long chair," the reclining seat). This creates a gentle orthographic paradox: a spelling that looks more French than its source actually means something entirely different in French.
It is a name that courts elegance through suggestion, the extra 'e' giving it a visual softness and continental warmth that the more direct "Chase" lacks. Some parents are drawn precisely to this ambiguity — the spelling reads as cultivated and slightly exotic while the name itself remains immediately recognizable to English-speaking ears. In the broader cultural landscape, Chase became strongly associated with American masculine naming in the late twentieth century, climbing popularity charts through the 1990s and 2000s.
Chaise sits slightly apart from that mainstream current — a quieter, more individualized choice that signals familiarity with the name's sonic identity while wanting something slightly less ubiquitous. It occupies the productive space between conventional and invented.