初
surname · Han script
Meaning: initial; inceptive (kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations))
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 3 countries · latest register: ChineseNames: given names by birth decade/cohort 1930-2008, 2004
初 is a surname written in the Han script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- TWTaiwan1 in 34K(measured from records)
- MOMacao1 in 77K
- CNChina≈1 in 960K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- Record sources
- 54 (measured from records)
- 1 in 34K (inferred from the name graph)
≈1,500 people, est.
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Taiwan
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)initial; inceptive
Cited for this meaning 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 4 languages in the etymology graph.
Where the surname 初 is found
(measured from records)初 counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: the cn-chinesenames register; RIS/MOI — Household Registration Statistics (surnames + given names); 全國姓名統計分析 — National Name Statistical Analysis; DSEC Macau — NameStatistic surname sweep (2025 register lookup). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses
(measured from records)初 is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Chinese, beginning
as a wordBaxter-Sagart Old Chinese reconstruction, version 1.1 (2014)
In Chinese, from 姓苑; origin uncertain
as a name新华姓氏词典 (Xinhua dictionary of Chinese surnames)
In Korean, hanja form of 초 (“beginning; start”)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Vietnamese, chữ Hán form of sơ (“in the initial stage; primary; elementary”)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Japanese, the first..., initial..., new...
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
How to address them
(machine-generated)Evidence
(measured from records)6 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 3 countries.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name 初 mean, and where does it come from?
- initial; inceptive Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- Which countries have the most people with the surname 初?
- Mondonomo estimates about 1.5 thousand people named 初 in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled 初. After it come Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao; the country table on this page ranks them.
- Where is 初 most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, 初 is densest in Taiwan — about 1 in 34 thousand people — even though China holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name 初?
- In Taiwan, the national register counted 701 people named 初 in 2023, about 1 in 34 thousand residents.
- How common is 初 compared with other names?
- In China, 初 is the 376th most common surname of 142,871 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about 初?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/%E5%88%9DThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “初” — ranked 327th in China (the cn-chinesenames register). Data snapshot 2026-10-13.