Cáu

surname · Latin script

Meaning: dirt, filth

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Cáu is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Vietnam than in any other country.

rarermore common
  • VNVietnam≈1 in 19K(inferred from the name graph)
  • USUnited States1 in 733K
  • BRBrazil1 in 2.3M

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)

≈5,300 people, est.

Sources
67 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 19K (inferred from the name graph)

Vietnam, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

3 other spellings are counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Cậu in VN Vietnam, US United States.

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)

dirt, filth

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested across 5 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Cáu 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 Cáu is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
VN Vietnam#467≈5,300 est.≈1 in 19K—Cậu67
US United States—4541 in 733K394Cậu52
BR Brazil—921 in 2.3M92——
IT Italy—≈2 est.≈1 in 35Mlisted—3
AR Argentina———172——

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 — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror). 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)

Cáu is also recorded as 4 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • a separate name37 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Vietnam, Colombia, Brazil, India

    Also written Cau, Cầu, Cậu, Cäu, Cậu'

  • Spanish surname28 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Cau, Caú, Cäü, Caü, Čâű

  • German given name20 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Germany, United States, Australia

    Languages: German, English

    Also written Cậu, Cau, Cẩu, Câu, Cầu

  • a separate name7 spellings in the group

    Also written Câu, Cau, Câù, Cà̂u, Cầu

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)

Cáu is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In mlc, nine

    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.

Evidence(measured from records)

No register attests this spelling yet

None of the official registers or reference works in our corpus lists Cáu under this spelling. The statistics on this page rest on person records, and the related names are inferred from the name graph.

Frequently asked questions

What does the name Cáu mean, and where does it come from?
dirt, filth Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
In which country does Cáu have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 5.3 thousand people named Cáu in Vietnam, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled cậu.
How common is the name Cáu?
In the United States, the national register counted 454 people named Cáu in 2020, about 1 in 733 thousand residents.
How common is Cáu compared with other names?
In Vietnam, Cáu is the 467th most common given name of 73,918 given names recorded there.

What do you want to know about Cáu?

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/c%C3%A1u

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, “Cáu” — the 467th most common given name in Vietnam. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Cáu parses inside a full name →