Tián
surname · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Tián is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. Recorded meaning: French, from Provençal tian, from Old Occitan, from Ancient Greek τήγανον (tḗganon), variant of τάγηνον (tágēnon, “frying pan”).
- USUnited States1 in 94K(measured from records)
- FIFinland1 in 26K
- SESweden1 in 64K
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.
- United States (measured from records)
- Sources
- 66 (measured from records)
- 1 in 26K (inferred from the name graph)
3,547 people, 2010
Highest-authority source
Finland
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Tian in US United States, GT Guatemala, ES Spain.
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)
- Provençaltian(measured from records)
- OldOccitan(measured from records)
- Ancient Greekτήγανονtḗganon(measured from records)
French, from Provençal tian, from Old Occitan, from Ancient Greek τήγανον (tḗganon), variant of τάγηνον (tágēnon, “frying pan”).
Sources 3
- Wiktionary
- Nordic Names
- Schuessler, ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese (2007)
Attested across 26 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Tián 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 | — | 3,547 | 1 in 94K | 6.8K | Tian | 66 |
| ES Spain | — | 431 | 1 in 116K | 431 | Tian | 25 |
| FI Finland | — | 211 | 1 in 26K | 211 | — | 1 |
| SE Sweden | — | 159 | 1 in 64K | 159 | — | 3 |
| PL Poland | — | 133 | 1 in 288K | 76 | — | — |
| CH Switzerland | — | 96 | 1 in 88K | 96 | — | 2 |
| NO Norway | — | 58 | 1 in 94K | 678 | — | 2 |
| GT Guatemala | #993 | ≈17 est. | ≈1 in 1M | — | Tian | 14 |
3,547 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; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames). 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)
Tián is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Iloko, belly, abdomen; womb, uterus
as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0
In Chinese, Hanyu Pinyin reading of 佂
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In bku, belly
as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0
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)
- Thomas Tien Ken-sinb. 1890CNnot in their usual nameCatholic cardinal (1890-1967)
- Tian Hanb. 1898CNChinese playwright, screenwriter, songwriter (1898-1968)
- Tien Fengb. 1928TWnot in their usual nameChinese actor (1928–2015)
- James Tienb. 1942CNnot in their usual nameHong Kong actor
- Tian Zhuangzhuangb. 1952CNChinese filmmaker
- Gang Tianb. 1958CNChinese mathematician
- Lily Tienb. 1967TWnot in their usual nameTaiwanese actress
- Tian Qingb. 1986CNChinese badminton player
- Valerie Tianb. 1989CAactress
- Jeon Jiheeb. 1992CNnot in their usual nameChinese-born South Korean table tennis 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).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 2 sources across 1 country.
Reference works 1
- Wikipedia surname tokens
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 Tián mean, and where does it come from?
- French, from Provençal tian, from Old Occitan, from Ancient Greek τήγανον (tḗganon), variant of τάγηνον (tágēnon, “frying pan”). Recorded by Wiktionary and Nordic Names and 1 other source.
- In which country does Tián have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 3.5 thousand people named Tián, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled tian.
- Where is Tián most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Tián is densest in Finland — about 1 in 26 thousand people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Tián?
- In the United States, the national register counted 3,547 people named Tián in 2010, about 1 in 94 thousand residents.
- How common is Tián compared with other names?
- In Guatemala, Tián is the 993rd most common surname of 54,341 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Tián?
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/ti%C3%A1nThe 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, “Tián” — the 993rd most common surname in Guatemala. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.