Chon
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in English: Jeon Du-hwan (1931–2021), South Korean general and president (1980–88)
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/tʃɑn/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Chon is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- MYMalaysia≈1 in 21K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 91K
- KPNorth Korea≈1 in 4.4K
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)
- Sources
- 287 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 4.4K (inferred from the name graph)
≈15,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
North Korea, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Jeon Du-hwan (1931–2021), South Korean general and president (1980–88).
Sources 1
- Korea - A Historical and Cultural Dictionary
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
How Chon is read(measured from records)
Chon is one spelling over 3 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- English59%
Jeon Du-hwan (1931–2021), South Korean general and president (1980–88).
as a nameKorea - A Historical and Cultural Dictionary
Alternative spelling of jun.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Spanish12%
underpants, panties (of men or women)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Korean7.5%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Chon in Korean.
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Chon 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 | — | ≈15,000 est. | ≈1 in 95K | — | Chon | 26 |
| KP North Korea | #133 | ≈5,800 est. | ≈1 in 4.4K | — | Chon | 18 |
| US United States | — | 3,643 | 1 in 91K | 3.9K | Chon | 287 |
| MY Malaysia | — | ≈1,500 est. | ≈1 in 21K | — | Chon | 35 |
| AO Angola | #865 | ≈1,500 est. | ≈1 in 22K | — | Chon | 2 |
| HK Hong Kong | — | ≈180 est. | ≈1 in 40K | — | Chon | 24 |
| MO Macao | #289 | ≈120 est. | ≈1 in 5K | — | Chon | 20 |
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 2000. 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)
Chon 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 Khmer, (in) p. to be h ig h ly polished; to be cleaned out or flat broke (coL). {a.w.: toH
as a wordHeadley, Cambodian-English Dictionary, Volume I (ក-ភ)
abbreviation of en:carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Irish, lenited form of con
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)
- Chun Doo-hwanb. 1931KRnot in their usual name11th and 12th President of the Republic of Korea (1931~2021)
- Jeon Mi-seonb. 1970KRnot in their usual nameSouth Korean actress
- Yong Duk Jhunb. 1971KRnot in their usual nameSouth Korean cinematographer and animator
- Jeon Do-yeonb. 1973KRnot in their usual nameSouth Korean actress
- Justin Chonb. 1981USAmerican actor
- Jeon So-minb. 1986KRnot in their usual nameSouth Korean actress, born 1986
- Jeon So Minb. 1996KRnot in their usual nameSouth Korean singer, born 1996
- Jeon Jung-kookb. 1997KRnot in their usual nameSouth Korean singer
- Jeon Soyeonb. 1998KRnot in their usual nameSouth Korean singer and rapper (born 1998)
- Jeon So-mib. 2001CAnot in their usual nameCanadian-South Korean singer-songwriter and dancer (born 2001)
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)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 34 sources across 20 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 3.9K | #7,958 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 3.6K | #8,981 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 3.3K | #9,407 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 5
- 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)
- 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 Chon mean, and where does it come from?
- Jeon Du-hwan (1931–2021), South Korean general and president (1980–88). Recorded by Korea - A Historical and Cultural Dictionary.
- How do you pronounce Chon?
- A machine transcription gives /tʃɑn/ (IPA) for English.
- What are other forms of the name Chon?
- In the etymology graph, Jeon is a form of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Chon have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 15 thousand people named Chon in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled chon.
- How common is the name Chon?
- In the United States, the national register counted 3,643 people named Chon in 2010, about 1 in 91 thousand residents.
- How common is Chon compared with other names?
- In North Korea, Chon is the 133rd most common surname of 2,439 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Chon?
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/chonThe 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, “Chon” — the 133rd most common surname in North Korea. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.