Chua
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in English: A surname from Hokkien
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/ˈkuə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Chua is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the Philippines than in any other country. In Singapore it is the 11th most common surname.
- SGSingapore≈1 in 319(inferred from the name graph)
- MYMalaysia≈1 in 601
- PHPhilippines≈1 in 1.7K
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.
- Philippines (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 343 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 319 (inferred from the name graph)
≈63,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Singapore, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
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)
a Chinese Indonesian surname from Hokkien.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
How Chua is read(measured from records)
Chua 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.
- English64%
A surname from Hokkien.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Malay14%
a Chinese Indonesian surname from Hokkien.
as a wordrecorded as Indonesiankaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Spanish9.8%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Chua in Spanish.
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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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)
Chua 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PH Philippines | #108 | ≈63,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.7K | — | Chua | 182 |
| MY Malaysia | #142 | ≈54,000 est. | ≈1 in 601 | — | Chua | 143 |
| SG Singapore | #11 | ≈19,000 est. | ≈1 in 319 | — | Chua | 205 |
| US United States | — | 4,309 | 1 in 77K | 5.1K | Chua | 343 |
| AU Australia | #920 | ≈2,300 est. | ≈1 in 11K | — | Chua | 175 |
| HK Hong Kong | #466 | ≈1,300 est. | ≈1 in 5.8K | — | Chua | 64 |
| UY Uruguay | — | 365 | 1 in 9.3K | 365 | — | — |
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; INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public). 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)
Chua is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Filipino, a Chinese Filipino surname from Hokkien
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Chinese, nonstandard spelling of chuā
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Vietnamese, sour; acid; vinegary
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In grt, to be high, tall
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)
- Cai Lunb. 48CNnot in their usual nameChinese official credited with inventing paper (died 121)
- Hua Tuob. 200CNnot in their usual nameChinese physician (c. 140–208)
- Phraya Manopakorn Nitithadab. 1884THnot in their usual namePrime Minister of Siam from 1932 to 1933
- Hua Guofengb. 1921CNnot in their usual name2nd Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, 2nd Premier of the People's Republic of China (1921–2008)
- Tsai Ing-wenb. 1956TWnot in their usual name14th and 15th President of Republic of China (Taiwan)
- Tsai Ming-liangb. 1957MYnot in their usual nameMalaysian-Taiwanese filmmaker (born 1957)
- Amy Chuab. 1962USAmerican law professor and writer (born 1962)
- Jolin Tsaib. 1980TWnot in their usual nameTaiwanese singer, songwriter, and actress (born 1980)
- Albert Tsaib. 2004USnot in their usual nameAmerican actor (born 2004)
- Hua MulanCNnot in their usual nameChinese legendary female warrior
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 32 sources across 18 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 5.1K | #6,449 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 4.3K | #7,702 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 2.9K | #10,193 |
| UY Uruguay | INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public) | — | 365 | — |
| 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)
- Ethiopian name tokens (GitHub lehagere/ethiopian-names, 40/60 condominium list)
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
- Where does the name Chua come from?
- a Chinese Indonesian surname from Hokkien. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Chua?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈkuə/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Chua mean?
- In English, A surname from Hokkien.
- In which country does Chua have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 63 thousand people named Chua in the Philippines, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled chua.
- How common is the name Chua?
- In the United States, the national register counted 4,309 people named Chua in 2010, about 1 in 77 thousand residents.
- How common is Chua compared with other names?
- In the Philippines, Chua is the 108th most common surname of 876,464 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Chua?
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/chuaThe 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, “Chua” — the 108th most common surname in Philippines. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.