Kwan
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in English: A school of Korean martial arts
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/ˈkwɑn/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Kwan is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Hong Kong it is the 60th most common surname.
- HKHong Kong≈1 in 236(inferred from the name graph)
- MYMalaysia≈1 in 3.8K
- SGSingapore≈1 in 4.2K
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
- 392 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 236 (inferred from the name graph)
≈130,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Hong Kong, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
A school of Korean martial arts.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
How Kwan is read(measured from records)
Kwan is one spelling over 2 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- English71%
A school of Korean martial arts.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Chinese9.0%
Close (door)
as a wordrecorded as wuuA Vocabulary of the Shanghai Dialect
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Kwan 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 | — | ≈130,000 est. | ≈1 in 11K | — | Kwan | 61 |
| HK Hong Kong | #60 | ≈31,000 est. | ≈1 in 236 | — | Kwan | 131 |
| US United States | — | 8,965 | 1 in 37K | 9K | Kwan | 392 |
| MY Malaysia | #550 | ≈8,600 est. | ≈1 in 3.8K | — | Kwan | 89 |
| CA Canada | #829 | ≈4,500 est. | ≈1 in 8.4K | 1 | Kwan | 224 |
| MG Madagascar | — | ≈2,700 est. | ≈1 in 10K | 1 | — | 6 |
| SG Singapore | #319 | ≈1,500 est. | ≈1 in 4.2K | — | Kwan | 118 |
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; 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)
Kwan is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
2. Chinese W: variant of Guan
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
Chinese variant of Guam
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In kaw, place
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In fan, sick
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)
- Guan Yub. 162CNnot in their usual nameChinese general serving warlord Liu Bei (160-220)
- Nancy Kwanb. 1939USChinese-American actress
- Teddy Robinb. 1945CNnot in their usual nameHong Kong-English pop singer-songwriter
- Stanley Kwanb. 1957CNHong Kong film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor
- Rosamund Kwanb. 1962CNHong Kong actress
- Ke Huy Quanb. 1971USnot in their usual nameAmerican actor and stunt choreographer
- Kevin Kwanb. 1973SGAsian-American novelist
- Michelle Kwanb. 1980USAmerican figure skater and diplomat
- Kenny Kwanb. 1980CNHong Kong singer
- Dan Kwanb. 1988USAmerican director and screenwriter
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 49 sources across 29 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 1.3K | #7,964 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 511 | #7,964 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 7 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1976 | 5 | — |
| CA Canada | Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender | 2024 | 1 | #2,319 |
Reference works 5
- 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)
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 Kwan mean, and where does it come from?
- A school of Korean martial arts. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Kwan?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈkwɑn/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Kwan have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 127 thousand people named Kwan in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled kwan.
- How common is the name Kwan?
- In the United States, the national register counted 8,965 people named Kwan in 2010, about 1 in 37 thousand residents.
- How common is Kwan compared with other names?
- In Hong Kong, Kwan is the 60th most common surname of 8,142 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Kwan?
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/kwanThe 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, “Kwan” — the 60th most common surname in Hong Kong. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.