Wǔ

surname · Latin script

Meaning: Hanyu Pinyin reading of 五

Wǔ is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Hong Kong it is the 22nd most common surname.

  • TWTaiwan≈1 in 47(inferred from the name graph)
  • CNChina≈1 in 190
  • HKHong Kong≈1 in 220

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 Wǔ 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.

China (inferred from the name graph)

≈7,500,000 people, est.

#844 (measured from records)

of 19M surnames, spellings grouped

2 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Record sources
516 (measured from records)

corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling

strongest: highest-authority source

≈1 in 47 (inferred from the name graph)

Taiwan, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

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Spellings & scripts

(measured from records)
WǔLatin(measured from records)
ВуCyrillic(measured from records)

One other spelling is counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Wu in US United States, CN China, TW Taiwan 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)

Hanyu Pinyin reading of 五

Cited for this meaning 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested across 22 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world

(measured from records)

Wǔ 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 Wǔ is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
CN China#316≈7,500,000 est.≈1 in 185—Wu241
TW Taiwan#98≈510,000 est.≈1 in 47—Wu211
US United States#39471,7211 in 4.6K98KWu516
ID Indonesia—≈35,000 est.≈1 in 7.5K—Wu106
HK Hong Kong#22≈33,000 est.≈1 in 222—Wu136
AU Australia#102≈15,000 est.≈1 in 1.7K4Wu246
SG Singapore#52≈5,300 est.≈1 in 1.2K—Wu154

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; Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM). 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)

Wǔ is also recorded as 2 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Vietnamese surname150 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Vietnam, United States, France, Australia

    Languages: Vietnamese, English, French

    Also written Ngo, Ngô, Ngõ, Ngố, Wu

  • Thai surname16 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Thailand, China, United States, Laos

    Languages: Thai, Lao

    Also written Wu, วห, วิห, วูห์, ว์ห

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.

Notable people with this name

(measured from records)
500100015002000Wu Zixu, b. 526Wu Shihuo, b. 559Wu Zetian, b. 624Wu Lien-teh, b. 1879Vu Van Mau, b. 1914Wu Liangyong, b. 1922Sheryl WuDunn, b. 1959Philip Ng, b. 1977Wu Lei, b. 1991Ng Ka Long, b. 1994
  • Wu Zixub. 526CNChinese Wu kingdom general and politician (died 484 BC)
  • Wu Shihuob. 559father of Wu Zetian
  • Wu Zetianb. 624CNfounding empress of Zhou dynasty (r. 690–705); de facto ruler of Tang dynasty from 665 to 690
  • Wu Lien-tehb. 1879MYMalaysian physician (1879–1960)
  • Vu Van Maub. 1914VNnot in their usual namePrime Minister of South Vietnam (1914-1998)
  • Wu Liangyongb. 1922CNChinese urban planner
  • Sheryl WuDunnb. 1959USnot in their usual nameAmerican journalist and executive
  • Philip Ngb. 1977CNnot in their usual nameAmerican actor based in Hong Kong
  • Wu Leib. 1991CNChinese footballer
  • Ng Ka Longb. 1994CNnot in their usual nameHong Kong badminton 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)

1 register or reference work attests this spelling, across 0 countries.

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 Wǔ mean, and where does it come from?
Hanyu Pinyin reading of 五 Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
In which country does Wǔ have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 7.5 million people named Wǔ in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled wu.
How common is the name Wǔ?
In the United States, the national register counted 71,721 people named Wǔ in 2010, about 1 in 4.6 thousand residents.
How common is Wǔ compared with other names?
In China, Wǔ is the 316th most common surname of 142,871 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Wǔ?

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

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/w%C7%94

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, “Wǔ” — the 316th most common surname in China. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.

See how Wǔ parses inside a full name →