Family name origins & meanings
- Portuguese : habitational name from a place in the province of Tras-os-Montes named Chaves, from Latin (aquis) Flaviis, ‘(at the) waters of Flavius’. The place was the site of sulfurous springs with supposedly health-giving properties, around which a settlement was founded in the 1st century ad by the Emperor Vespasian.
- Portuguese and Galician : habitational name from any of numerous places called Chaves, generally from the plural of chave ‘key’, from Latin clavis.
- Variant of Irish and English Chivers. Compare Chavers.