Phạm
surname · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Phạm is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Vietnam than in any other country, where it is the 3rd most common surname. Recorded meaning: to commit a crime, or to violate.
- VNVietnam≈1 in 49(inferred from the name graph)
- AOAngola≈1 in 599
- AUAustralia≈1 in 2.4K
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.
- Vietnam (inferred from the name graph)
- #289 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 488 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 49 (inferred from the name graph)
≈2,000,000 people, est.
of 19M surnames
Highest-authority source
Vietnam, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Pham in VN Vietnam, US United States, AU Australia and 3 more.
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)
to commit a crime, or to violate
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 17 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Phạm 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VN Vietnam | #3 | ≈2,000,000 est. | ≈1 in 49 | 228 | Pham | 267 |
| CN China | — | ≈420,000 est. | ≈1 in 3.3K | — | Pham | 20 |
| US United States | #378 | 84,320 | 1 in 3.9K | 101K | Pham | 488 |
| AO Angola | #23 | ≈54,000 est. | ≈1 in 599 | — | Pham | 7 |
| GB United Kingdom | #636 | ≈12,000 est. | ≈1 in 5.4K | 1.1K | Pham | 159 |
| AU Australia | #174 | ≈11,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.4K | 1 | Pham | 240 |
| NO Norway | — | 2,842 | 1 in 1.9K | 2.8K | — | 51 |
| MO Macao | #172 | ≈730 est. | ≈1 in 845 | — | Phạm | 4 |
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 page provides an analysis of the performance of Vietnamese surname lists in identifying Vietnamese individuals for r; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present); Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population). 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)
Phạm is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Vietnamese, Họ của người thầy trong ví dụ; người họ Đỗ theo họ Phạm rồi giữ Đỗ làm chữ lót.
as a nameTên Họ Người Việt Nam
In Vietnamese, Hán-Việt: mẫu mực, khuôn phép.
as a nameTên Họ Người Việt Nam
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)
- Fan Lib. 500CNnot in their usual nameearly 5th-century BC Chinese political and military advisor
- Phạm Văn Đồngb. 1906VNFirst Prime Minister of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, diplomat (1906–2000)
- Pham Hungb. 1912VNVietnamese politician (1912-1988)
- Pham Tuanb. 1947VNVietnamese astronaut, first Asian in space
- Bunjaku Hanb. 1948JPnot in their usual nameJapanese actress (1948-2002)
- Phạm Minh Chínhb. 1958VNVietnamese politician
- Phạm Nhật Vượngb. 1968VNVietnamese billionaire, entrepreneur and bussinessman (born 1968)
- Fann Wongb. 1971SGnot in their usual nameSingaporean actress and singer
- Linh Dan Phamb. 1974FRFrench-Vietnamese actress
- Fan Bingbingb. 1981CNnot 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).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 10 sources across 3 countries.
Reference works 1
- 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 Phạm mean, and where does it come from?
- to commit a crime, or to violate Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- In which country does Phạm have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 2.0 million people named Phạm in Vietnam, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled pham.
- How common is the name Phạm?
- In the United States, the national register counted 84,320 people named Phạm in 2010, about 1 in 3.9 thousand residents.
- How common is Phạm compared with other names?
- In Vietnam, Phạm is the 3rd most common surname of 62,915 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Phạm?
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/ph%E1%BA%A1mThe same 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), and bulk access is licensed separately.
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, “Phạm” — the 3rd most common surname in Vietnam. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.