Chau
surname · Latin script
Meaning: to knit one's eyebrows; frown; furrow one's brow
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Chau is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Hong Kong than in any other country.
- HKHong Kong≈1 in 267(inferred from the name graph)
- MYMalaysia≈1 in 6.7K
- CLChile≈1 in 7.9K
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.
- Hong Kong (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 403 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 267 (inferred from the name graph)
≈27,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Hong Kong, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
to knit one's eyebrows; frown; furrow one's brow
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Chau 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HK Hong Kong | #110 | ≈27,000 est. | ≈1 in 267 | — | Chau | 103 |
| US United States | — | 16,667 | 1 in 20K | 18K | Chau | 403 |
| AO Angola | #516 | ≈8,200 est. | ≈1 in 4K | — | Chau | 3 |
| MY Malaysia | #936 | ≈4,800 est. | ≈1 in 6.7K | — | Chau | 66 |
| CA Canada | — | ≈4,400 est. | ≈1 in 8.5K | — | Chau | 189 |
| AU Australia | #701 | ≈3,100 est. | ≈1 in 8.1K | 1 | Chau | 166 |
| CL Chile | — | ≈2,300 est. | ≈1 in 7.9K | — | Chau | 46 |
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; SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present). 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)
Chau 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 Esperanto, H-system spelling of ĉaŭ
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Welsh, aspirate mutation of cau
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In woe, to be heavy
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In top, tortilla
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Galician, goodbye
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)
- Cao Kunb. 1862CNnot in their usual nameChinese general and warlord (1862–1938)
- Lu Xunb. 1881CNnot in their usual nameChinese novelist and essayist (1881–1936)
- Zhou Enlaib. 1898CNnot in their usual name1st Premier of the People's Republic of China
- Raymond Chowb. 1927CNnot in their usual nameHong Kong film producer (1927–2018)
- Tsai Chinb. 1936CNnot in their usual nameChinese-born British actress
- Michael Chowb. 1939CNnot in their usual nameChinese-born American actor, interior designer and restaurateur
- Chow Yun-fatb. 1955CNnot in their usual nameHong Kong actor
- Olivia Chowb. 1957CAnot in their usual nameCanadian politician
- Jay Choub. 1979TWnot in their usual nameTaiwanese pop singer, songwriter, and actor
- Osric Chaub. 1986CACanadian actor and martial artist
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 49 sources across 24 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 18K | #1,977 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 17K | #2,181 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 13K | #2,498 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 5
- 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 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
- What does the name Chau mean, and where does it come from?
- to knit one's eyebrows; frown; furrow one's brow Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- In which country does Chau have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 27 thousand people named Chau in Hong Kong, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled chau.
- How common is the name Chau?
- In the United States, the national register counted 16,667 people named Chau in 2010, about 1 in 20 thousand residents.
- How common is Chau compared with other names?
- In Hong Kong, Chau is the 110th most common surname of 8,142 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Chau?
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/chauThe 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, “Chau” — the 110th most common surname in Hong Kong. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.