Trần

surname · Latin script

Meaning: Name taboo of the king’s wife (Thái Tông’s mother); also a major Vietnamese surname

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

/cɤ̆n˧˨/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Trần is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Vietnam than in any other country, where it is the 2nd most common surname.

rarermore common
  • VNVietnam≈1 in 30(inferred from the name graph)
  • AOAngola≈1 in 324
  • AUAustralia≈1 in 1.1K

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 Trần 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.

Vietnam (inferred from the name graph)

≈3,300,000 people, est.

#165 (measured from records)

of 19M surnames

2 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
533 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 30 (inferred from the name graph)

Vietnam, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

TrầnLatin(measured from records)
ΤρανGreek(measured from records)

One other spelling is counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Tran in VN Vietnam, US United States, AU Australia and 4 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)

Name taboo of the king’s wife (Thái Tông’s mother); also a major Vietnamese surname. Here included among forbidden court names.

Sources 1

  • Tên Họ Người Việt Nam

Attested across 19 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Trần 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.

Where Trần is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
VN Vietnam#2≈3,300,000 est.≈1 in 30166Tran289
CN China—≈820,000 est.≈1 in 1.7K—Tran25
US United States#127188,4981 in 1.8K234KTran533
AO Angola#8≈100,000 est.≈1 in 324—Tran5
ES Spain—26,262as Chen1 in 1.9K26K—38
AU Australia#55≈24,000 est.≈1 in 1.1K1Tran262
CL Chile#885≈14,000 est.≈1 in 1.3K—Tran23
NO Norway#5366,5061 in 8406.5KTran70

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: Vietnamese Surname Corpus — academic citation compilation; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present); INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Trần is also recorded as 5 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • a separate surname61 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, Malaysia, Canada

    Also written Tran, Trấn, Trân, Tràn, Trà̂n

  • a separate name10 spellings in the group

    Also written Tran, Trån, Träñ, Trän, Trân

  • Hindi surname27 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Malaysia, United Kingdom, Canada

    Languages: Hindi, Urdu, Sinhala

    Also written Tran, Trân, Trâń, Trấn, Trận

  • a separate name14 spellings in the group

    Also written Trān, Tràn, Trà̂n, Trán, Trâǹ

  • French surname14 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, Canada, Belgium

    Also written Tran, Trân, Trâǹ, Trà̂n, Trãn

38 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Trần 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 Vietnamese, Vietnamese surname of Chinese origin; the text notes it was tabooed and altered to Trình in the Lê period.

    as a nameTên Họ Người Việt Nam

  • In Vietnamese, Họ Việt gốc Hán, thường viết húy trong QTHL; trong bài được nói là tên một bà vợ của vua Lê Thái Tổ.

    as a nameTên Họ Người Việt Nam

  • In Vietnamese, Hán-Việt; nước Trần, quê quán của Tức Vĩ.

    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)

190019502000Pridi Banomyong, b. 1900Trần Đức Lương, b. 1937Margaret Chan, b. 1947Chen Shui-bian, b. 1950Jackie Chan, b. 1954Joan Chen, b. 1961Steve Chen, b. 1978Vanessa-Mae, b. 1978Priscilla Chan, b. 1985Lana Condor, b. 1997
  • Pridi Banomyongb. 1900THnot in their usual nameThai prime minister (1900-1983)
  • Trần Đức Lươngb. 1937VNVietnamese politician
  • Margaret Chanb. 1947CNnot in their usual nameChinese-Canadian physician (born 1947)
  • Chen Shui-bianb. 1950TWnot in their usual name10th and 11th President of Republic of China(Taiwan) (2000–2008)
  • Jackie Chanb. 1954CNnot in their usual nameHong Kong actor and martial artist (born 1954)
  • Joan Chenb. 1961CNnot in their usual nameChinese-American actress and director
  • Steve Chenb. 1978TWnot in their usual nameChinese-American businessman
  • Vanessa-Maeb. 1978SGnot in their usual nameBritish violinist
  • Priscilla Chanb. 1985USnot in their usual nameAmerican pediatrician and philanthropist
  • Lana Condorb. 1997USnot in their usual nameVietnamese-American 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).

How to address them(machine-generated)

FormalDear Colleague,
InformalHello,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 12 sources across 4 countries.

Official registers attesting Trần
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
VN VietnamVietnamese Surname Corpus — academic citation compilation1984166#2
VN VietnamVietnamese surnames (Kaggle)———

Reference works 2

  • 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

Where does the name Trần come from?
Name taboo of the king’s wife (Thái Tông’s mother); also a major Vietnamese surname. Here included among forbidden court names. Recorded by Tên Họ Người Việt Nam.
How do you pronounce Trần?
A machine transcription gives /cɤ̆n˧˨/ (IPA) for Vietnamese.
What does the name Trần mean?
Recorded meaning: Name taboo of the king’s wife (Thái Tông’s mother); also a major Vietnamese surname.
In which country does Trần have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 3.3 million people named Trần in Vietnam, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled tran.
How common is the name Trần?
In the United States, the national register counted 188,498 people named Trần in 2010, about 1 in 1.8 thousand residents.
How common is Trần compared with other names?
In Vietnam, Trần is the 2nd most common surname of 62,915 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Trần?

Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.

Please leave out anyone's personal details (see Privacy).

Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/tr%E1%BA%A7n

The 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, “Trần” — the 2nd most common surname in Vietnam. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Trần parses inside a full name →