Cho
surname · Latin script
Meaning: Dowager Queen Cho; patron of Kyongbok Palace rebuilding in 1865
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/tʃow/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Cho is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in South Korea than in any other country, where it is the 4th most common surname.
- SGSingapore≈1 in 5.2K(inferred from the name graph)
- KRSouth Korea1 in 22as 최
- KPNorth Korea≈1 in 192as Choi
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Cho itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- South Korea (measured from records)
- #171 (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 479 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 5.2K (inferred from the name graph)
2,340,582 named 최, 2015
of 19M surnames
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Singapore, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Choi in US United States, CA Canada, HK Hong Kong and 1 more, 최 in KR South Korea, MO Macao and Choe in KP North Korea.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Dowager Queen Cho; patron of Kyongbok Palace rebuilding in 1865.
Sources 1
- Korea - A Historical and Cultural Dictionary
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Cho 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.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KR South Korea | #4 | 2,340,582as 최 | 1 in 22 | 2.4M | 최 | 291 |
| CN China | — | ≈260,000 est. | ≈1 in 5.4K | — | Choi | 66 |
| KP North Korea | #8 | ≈130,000 est. | ≈1 in 192 | 63 | Choe | 47 |
| US United States | #276 | 50,786as Choi | 1 in 6.5K | 55K | Choi | 479 |
| HK Hong Kong | #52 | ≈36,000 est. | ≈1 in 204 | — | Choi | 118 |
| CA Canada | #148 | ≈9,100 est. | ≈1 in 4.2K | 1 | Choi | 232 |
| MO Macao | #16 | ≈1,800 est. | ≈1 in 335 | — | 최 | 21 |
| SG Singapore | #195 | ≈1,200 est. | ≈1 in 5.2K | — | Cho | 100 |
2,340,582 people counted by KOSIS 2015 Census — surname population with hanja variants, 2015. 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: KOSIS 2015 Census — surname population with hanja variants; KOSIS — 2015 census surnames; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; Wikidata humans by citizenship — given & family names. 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)
Cho 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.
Chessnah, Chezna, Cheznia, Chezniah, Mariposa
as a name25,000 nombres de bebé. La mejor guía para escoger el nombre adecuado
In cdo, found ； to establish, to erect : also read i6h、 q. v. : tauk^ pre- eminent ； tauk^ wok、 tinff Jcung, to excel the whole crowd ； *tauk^ lik^ to erect, to set upright'; *tauk, ^ meritorious, as said of of- ficers at the quinquennial trial ； COLL., tauky chi &、 ig、 (a concubine) promoted to be the chief wife.
as a wordAn Alphabetic Dictionary of the Chinese Language in the Foochow Dialect
In cdo, +e E- a slight sickness, to recover from illness
as a wordDictionary of the Foochow Dialect
In Galician, contraction of te o (“to you, him/it (masculine)”)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In frp, alternative form of sol (“alone”)
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.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Zhang Qianb. 200CNnot in their usual nameimperial envoy to the world outside of China in the 2nd century BC
- Jang Sung-taekb. 1946KPnot in their usual nameNorth Korean government official (1946–2013)
- Zhang Yimoub. 1950CNnot in their usual nameChinese filmmaker
- Yitang Zhangb. 1955CNnot in their usual nameChinese-born American mathematician
- Leslie Cheungb. 1956CNnot in their usual nameHong Kong singer and actor (1956–2003)
- Maggie Cheungb. 1964GBnot in their usual nameHong Kong actress
- John Chob. 1972USAmerican actor (born 1972)
- Michael Changb. 1972USnot in their usual nameAmerican tennis player (born 1972)
- Chang Chenb. 1976TWnot in their usual nameTaiwanese actor
- Meng'er Zhangb. 1987CNnot in their usual nameChinese actress
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 45 sources across 26 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 709 | #11,131 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 460 | #11,131 |
Reference works 6
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Cho mean, and where does it come from?
- Dowager Queen Cho; patron of Kyongbok Palace rebuilding in 1865. Recorded by Korea - A Historical and Cultural Dictionary.
- How do you pronounce Cho?
- A machine transcription gives /tʃow/ (IPA) for English.
- What are other forms of the name Cho?
- In the etymology graph, Chou is a form of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Cho have the most bearers?
- In South Korea, the national register counted about 2.3 million people named 최, more than in any other country we hold.
- How common is the name Cho?
- In South Korea, the national register counted 2,340,582 people named 최 in 2015, about 1 in 22 residents.
- How common is Cho compared with other names?
- In South Korea, Cho is the 4th most common surname of 14,133 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Cho?
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/choThe 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, “Cho” — the 4th most common surname in South Korea. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.