Chee
Chee is usually treated as a British and Irish surname with uncertain roots, and may in some cases reflect a nickname or a dialect word rather than a single fixed origin.
The #6,784 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 62,084 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The historical evidence for Chee is thin and mixed, and the name is probably not from one single source in every family. In older dialect material, forms like chee are linked to a local word, but the excerpt does not firmly establish a surname meaning. In Manx sources, closely related spellings such as Shee are tied to the Manx word for "peace," though that connection is to a different-looking name and should not be assumed for Chee without local evidence.
History
The surname appears sparsely in English-language records and is also found in contexts where Manx or Irish spellings may overlap in sound or transcription. Because the name is uncommon and the excerpted sources do not provide a clear headword entry for Chee, its history is best treated as multiple possible local origins rather than one settled derivation.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
The same old Manx sources that mention Chee also discuss place-names built from Shee, the Manx word for "peace," including Port-e-Chee and Cronk-ny-Shee.
From the historical record
“Jeremy Heiuhall, Manchester, 1701 1 Lane, and Chee. Rec Soc. li. «. Agnea de Heualle, 1379: P.T. Yocks. DlcoialDI de HenaaK IJT?' ^^*^”
— A Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames, with special American instances