Hong
given name · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Hong is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In South Korea it is the 20th most common surname. In Vietnamese, recorded as to dry (in the wind, sun, or near the fire).
- MYMalaysia≈1 in 1.1K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 11K
- KRSouth Korea1 in 93as 홍
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Hong itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. 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
- 296 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.1K (inferred from the name graph)
≈890,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Malaysia, 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 홍 in KR South Korea.
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)
2 ‘red’, the auspicious colour of weddings, also of the Communist party. 2 J ‘Wild swan’. 3 3 ‘Great’.
Sources 1
- A concise dictionary of first names
Attested across 16 languages in the etymology graph.
How Hong is read(measured from records)
Hong 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.
- Vietnamese53%
to dry (in the wind, sun, or near the fire)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Rose
as a nameVietnamese Personal Names (CIA Foreign Names Studies, ch. 37)
- English23%
past of hang
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Chinese: “water, flood”.
as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
- Chinese6.6%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Hong in Chinese.
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)
Hong 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 | — | ≈890,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.6K | — | Hong | 42 |
| KR South Korea | #20 | 558,994as 홍 | 1 in 93 | 595K | 홍 | 223 |
| US United States | — | 31,670 | 1 in 11K | 33K | Hong | 296 |
| MY Malaysia | — | ≈30,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.1K | — | Hong | 50 |
| CA Canada | — | ≈5,800 est. | ≈1 in 6.5K | 1 | Hong | 86 |
| HK Hong Kong | — | ≈5,500 est. | ≈1 in 1.3K | — | Hong | 33 |
| SG Singapore | — | ≈4,900 est. | ≈1 in 1.3K | — | Hong | 48 |
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: KOSIS 2015 Census — surname population with hanja variants; KOSIS — 2015 census surnames; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender. 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)
Hong is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
2 ‘red’, the auspicious colour of weddings, also of the Communist party. 2 J ‘Wild swan’. 3 3 ‘Great’.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
Chinese Cantonese variant of Kang
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
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)
- Emperor Ling of Hanb. 156not in their usual nameEmperor of the Han dynasty from 168 to 189
- Emperor Houshao of Hanb. 196not in their usual nameemperor of the Han dynasty
- Li Hongb. 652Tang Dynasty crown prince
- Hiệp Hòab. 1847VNnot in their usual nameVietnamese emperor (1847–1883)
- Hong Sung-Sikb. 1967KRSouth Korean boxer
- Chen Hongb. 1968CNChinese actress and film producer
- Nguyễn Hồng Sơnb. 1970VNVietnamese association football player (born 1970)
- Chen Hongb. 1979CNChinese badminton player
- Đông Nhib. 1988VNnot in their usual nameVietnamese singer, songwriter, and actress (born 1988)
- Quan Hongchanb. 2007CNnot in their usual nameChinese diver (2007-)
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 74 sources across 36 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| KR South Korea | KOSIS — 2015 census surnames | 2015 | 595K | #21 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 33K | #1,047 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 32K | #1,106 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 24K | #1,352 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 15K | #1,548 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 6.2K | #1,548 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2006 | 8 | — |
| CA Canada | Statistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01) | 2015 | 7 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2001 | 6 | — |
| CA Canada | Statistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01) | 2011 | 5 | — |
| CA Canada | Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender | 2023 | 1 | #2,230 |
Reference works 7
- 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
- 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
- Where does the name Hong come from?
- 2 ‘red’, the auspicious colour of weddings, also of the Communist party. 2 J ‘Wild swan’. 3 3 ‘Great’. Recorded by A concise dictionary of first names.
- What does the name Hong mean?
- In Vietnamese, to dry (in the wind, sun, or near the fire)
- Is Hong a male or female name?
- Hong is recorded for both men and women. We don't publish a percentage split: a record's gender belongs to the person and is attached to every given name on that record, so names in cultures where a name string also carries a parent's or spouse's given name pick up large cross-gender counts.
- In which country does Hong have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 894 thousand people named Hong in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled hong.
- How common is the name Hong?
- In the United States, the national register counted 31,670 people named Hong in 2010, about 1 in 11 thousand residents.
- How common is Hong compared with other names?
- In South Korea, Hong is the 20th most common surname of 14,133 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Hong?
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/hongThe 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, “Hong” — the 20th most common surname in South Korea. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.