Pon
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in English: A call for forming a set of three identical tiles using a discarded tile
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/pʰɑn/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Pon is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- PHPhilippines≈1 in 55K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 37Kas Pond
- CACanada≈1 in 38Kas Pond
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 Pon 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.
- United States (measured from records)
- Sources
- 325 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 26K (inferred from the name graph)
9,052 named Pond, 2010
Highest-authority source
Malaysia, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Pond in US United States, CA Canada and 폰 in KR South 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)
A call for forming a set of three identical tiles using a discarded tile.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 4 languages in the etymology graph.
How Pon is read(measured from records)
Pon is one spelling over 3 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.
- English52%
A call for forming a set of three identical tiles using a discarded tile.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Spanish17%
second-person singular imperative of poner
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- French5.8%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Pon in French.
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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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)
Pon 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | — | 9,052as Pond | 1 in 37K | 9.1K | Pond | 325 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈2,400 est. | ≈1 in 27K | 2.4K | Pon | 134 |
| PH Philippines | — | ≈2,000 est. | ≈1 in 55K | listed | Pon | 38 |
| MY Malaysia | — | ≈1,200 est. | ≈1 in 26K | — | Pon | 25 |
| CA Canada | — | ≈990 est. | ≈1 in 38K | — | Pond | 86 |
| UY Uruguay | — | 105 | 1 in 32K | 105 | — | 2 |
| LS Lesotho | — | ≈76 est. | ≈1 in 26K | 1 | — | 1 |
| DM Dominica | — | 66as Pond | 1 in 1.1K | 66 | — | 1 |
| KR South Korea | #845 | ≈27 est. | ≈1 in 1.9M | — | 폰 | 8 |
| KN St. Kitts & Nevis | — | 4as Pond | 1 in 13K | 4 | — | 2 |
9,052 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. 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; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public); Dominica — Revised List of Electors May 2025; St Kitts & Nevis — Register of Electors 2026; Lesotho IEC 2022 National Assembly candidate lists. 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)
Pon 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.
In Akan, a. in cpds. great, large; cf. abgpgn, obirempgn = ghene, nantupgn, Akiiropgn, Mampgn, Onyaiikopgn
as a wordDictionary of the Asante and Fante Language called Tshi (Chwee, Twi)
In Akan, pono, F. to redeem, = ^y^. — pon, inf. redemption. o-pon, inf. abortion, miscarriage
as a wordDictionary of the Asante and Fante Language called Tshi (Chwee, Twi)
In enm, alternative form of pown (“pawn”)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In cim, A clearing; an area of land within a wood or forest devoid of trees.
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)
- Gerhardus du Ponb. 1746NLNorwegian painter
- Juan Pich y Ponb. 1878ESSpanish politician
- Ben Pon, Sr.b. 1904NLDutch businessman (1904–1968)
- Ben Ponb. 1936NLDutch sport shooter and racing driver
- Jeff Tien Han Ponb. 1970USAmerican businessperson and government official
- Cindy Ponb. 1973TWTaiwan-born painter and author, in USA from 1980
- Andrew PonCACanadian astronomer
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 26 sources across 17 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 197 | #29,411 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 104 | #29,411 |
| UY Uruguay | Montevideo Open Data — Nombres por año y sexo (1940–2012) | 1981 | 1 | — |
Reference works 2
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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 Pon mean, and where does it come from?
- A call for forming a set of three identical tiles using a discarded tile. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Pon?
- A machine transcription gives /pʰɑn/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Pon have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 9.1 thousand people named Pond, more than in any other country we hold.
- How common is the name Pon?
- In Uruguay, the national register counted 105 people named Pon, about 1 in 32 thousand residents.
- How common is Pon compared with other names?
- In South Korea, Pon is the 845th most common surname of 14,133 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Pon?
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/ponThe 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, “Pon” — the 845th most common surname in South Korea. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.