Gan
surname · Latin script
Meaning: from an. gan 'magic'; possibly continued in several names
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/ɡæn/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Gan is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- MYMalaysia≈1 in 709(inferred from the name graph)
- SGSingapore≈1 in 1.5K
- PHPhilippines≈1 in 13K
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)
- Sources
- 339 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 709 (inferred from the name graph)
≈300,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Malaysia, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
- Old Irishin(inferred from the name graph)via an
- Chinato(inferred from the name graph)via in
Steps marked ◐ come from the entry for the form named above them, not from this name's own sources.
from an. gan 'magic'; possibly continued in several names
Sources 1
- Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
Attested across 21 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Gan 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈300,000 est. | ≈1 in 4.7K | — | Gan | 62 |
| MY Malaysia | #197 | ≈46,000 est. | ≈1 in 709 | — | Gan | 124 |
| PH Philippines | — | ≈8,300 est. | ≈1 in 13K | — | Gan | 104 |
| SG Singapore | #107 | ≈4,200 est. | ≈1 in 1.5K | — | Gan | 147 |
| US United States | — | 2,891 | 1 in 115K | 3.5K | Gan | 339 |
| AU Australia | — | ≈1,600 est. | ≈1 in 15K | — | Gan | 140 |
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: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020. 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)
Gan 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 German, Orthographic variation im Auslaut: ss vs. ß nach Konsonant; 83+378 Belege.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus
In English, long., China
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
unexplained.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In och, have in the mouth; hold back; bear resentment; hold inside; contain; cuirass; envelop
as a wordSchuessler, ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese (2007)
In och, Slender bamboo; straw of grain; shaft of arrow
as a wordSchuessler, ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese (2007)
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)
- Gan Yingb. 100Late first century Chinese military ambassador
- Gan Deb. 4004th-century BC Chinese astronomer and astrologer
- Yan Huib. 521not in their usual nameChinese philosopher (c. 521–481 BC)
- Yan Huiqingb. 1877CNnot in their usual namePremier of Republic of China (1877-1950)
- Chester Ganb. 1908USAmerican actor (1908-1959)
- Gan Kim Yongb. 1952SGSingaporean politician
- Tae Hitotob. 1970JPnot in their usual nameJapanese actress
- Yen Cheng-kuob. 1974TWnot in their usual nameTaiwanese actor (1974–2025)
- Yō Hitotob. 1976JPnot in their usual nameJapanese-Taiwanese pop singer (born 1976)
- Yan Bingtaob. 2000CNnot in their usual nameChinese snooker player
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 46 sources across 26 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 263 | #25,575 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 107 | #25,575 |
Reference works 5
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- 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 Gan mean, and where does it come from?
- from an. gan 'magic'; possibly continued in several names Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
- How do you pronounce Gan?
- A machine transcription gives /ɡæn/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Gan have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 297 thousand people named Gan in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled gan.
- How common is the name Gan?
- In the United States, the national register counted 2,891 people named Gan in 2010, about 1 in 115 thousand residents.
- How common is Gan compared with other names?
- In Singapore, Gan is the 107th most common surname of 78,292 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Gan?
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/ganThe 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, “Gan” — the 107th most common surname in Singapore. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.