Chang
surname · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Chang is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In North Korea it is the 62nd most common surname. Recorded meaning: bow-stretcher; or person from Zhang in Shandong, China; or from advisers to the Chinese emperor Huang Di.
- MYMalaysia≈1 in 728(inferred from the name graph)
- SGSingapore≈1 in 1.3K
- CNChina≈1 in 1.3K
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.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 537 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 37 (inferred from the name graph)
≈1,000,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Taiwan, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Chang-Yu in TW Taiwan.
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)
bow-stretcher; or person from Zhang in Shandong, China; or from advisers to the Chinese emperor Huang Di
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 6 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Chang 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈1,000,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.3K | — | Chang | 111 |
| TW Taiwan | — | ≈640,000 est. | ≈1 in 37 | — | Chang-Yu | 21 |
| US United States | #322 | 81,939 | 1 in 4.1K | 83K | Chang | 537 |
| MY Malaysia | #120 | ≈45,000 est. | ≈1 in 728 | — | Chang | 131 |
| KP North Korea | #62 | ≈19,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.3K | 1 | Chang | 39 |
| SG Singapore | #87 | ≈4,800 est. | ≈1 in 1.3K | — | Chang | 166 |
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; Wikidata humans by citizenship — given & family names. 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)
Chang is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, A traditional harp of central and southwest Asia
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Estonian, snow-drift
as a nameRussian Surnames
In cdo, I I ' Used in the coll. for the |M| full time, amount, value : ' ActM) chang^ to come to the an' get time, as for taking the meal ； 'wiwoi* katt' chang* has not yet reached the time, amount, full value, etc.
as a wordAn Alphabetic Dictionary of the Chinese Language in the Foochow Dialect
In Indonesian, a Chinese Indonesian surname from Hokkien
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Filipino, a Chinese Filipino surname from English
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)
- Zhang Qianb. 200CNnot in their usual nameimperial envoy to the world outside of China in the 2nd century BC
- Taksinb. 1734THnot in their usual nameKing of Siam
- Rama Ib. 1737THnot in their usual nameKing of Siam (1737–1809)
- Buddha Loetla Nabhalaib. 1768THnot in their usual nameKing of Siam
- Zhang Yimoub. 1950CNnot in their usual nameChinese filmmaker
- Leslie Cheungb. 1956CNnot in their usual nameHong Kong singer and actor (1956–2003)
- Carrie Lamb. 1957GBnot in their usual nameformer Chief Executive of Hong Kong
- Maggie Cheungb. 1964GBnot in their usual nameHong Kong actress
- Michael Changb. 1972USAmerican tennis player (born 1972)
- Zhang Ziyib. 1979CNnot in their usual nameChinese actress and model
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 70 sources across 35 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 83K | #373 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 82K | #391 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 70K | #424 |
Reference works 6
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
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 Chang mean, and where does it come from?
- bow-stretcher; or person from Zhang in Shandong, China; or from advisers to the Chinese emperor Huang Di Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- In which country does Chang have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 1.0 million people named Chang in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled chang.
- How common is the name Chang?
- In the United States, the national register counted 81,939 people named Chang in 2010, about 1 in 4.1 thousand residents.
- How common is Chang compared with other names?
- In North Korea, Chang is the 62nd most common surname of 2,439 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Chang?
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/changThe same 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), and bulk access is licensed separately.
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, “Chang” — the 62nd most common surname in North Korea. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.