Jou
surname · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Jou is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Spain than in any other country. Recorded meaning: Tenet.
- USUnited States1 in 543K(measured from records)
- ESSpain1 in 79K
- MYMalaysia≈1 in 134K
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.
- Spain (measured from records)
- Sources
- 183 (measured from records)
- 1 in 79K (inferred from the name graph)
635 people
Highest-authority source
Spain
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
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)
Tenet
Sources 1
- An English-Chinese Vocabulary of the Shanghai Dialect
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Jou 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ES Spain | 635 | 1 in 79K | 635 | Jou | 38 |
| US United States | 613 | 1 in 543K | 663 | Jou | 183 |
| MY Malaysia | ≈240 est. | ≈1 in 134K | — | Jou | 25 |
| FR France | ≈240 est. | ≈1 in 283K | 11 | — | 2 |
| NL Netherlands | ≈110 est. | ≈1 in 165K | 9 | Jou | 4 |
| CL Chile | ≈76 est. | ≈1 in 238K | 1 | — | — |
635 people counted by INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos). 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 — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017); INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000); SRCEI — Nombres más comunes (guaguas, 1920–2021). 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)
Jou 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.
variant of Chu.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In tft, alternative spelling of joou (“lord”)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Dutch, you; second-person singular objective personal pronoun
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Western Frisian, first-person singular present of jaan (to give)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Afrikaans, you (singular, object)
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)
- 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
- Han Suyinb. 1917CNnot in their usual namephysician and author (1917–2012)
- 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
- Jay Choub. 1979TWnot in their usual nameTaiwanese pop singer, songwriter, and actor
- Agnes Chowb. 1996CNnot in their usual nameHong Kong political activist
- Zhou Guanyub. 1999CNnot in their usual nameChinese racing driver
- Chou Tzuyub. 1999TWnot in their usual nameTaiwanese singer (born 1999)
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 28 sources across 16 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 663 | #36,342 |
| ES Spain | INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 635 | #6,582 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 635 | #6,580 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 613 | #36,477 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 538 | #38,644 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1981 | 17 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1961 | 12 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1941 | 12 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1991 | 11 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1951 | 9 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1931 | 7 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1901 | 7 | — |
Reference works 3
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- 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 Jou mean, and where does it come from?
- Tenet Recorded by An English-Chinese Vocabulary of the Shanghai Dialect.
- In which country does Jou have the most bearers?
- In Spain, the national register counted about 635 people named Jou, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled jou.
- Where is Jou most common?
- Jou is densest in Spain, where the national register counts about 1 in 79 thousand people carrying it.
- How common is the name Jou?
- In Spain, the national register counted 635 people named Jou, about 1 in 79 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Jou?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/jouThe same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use; a free API key gives 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, “Jou”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.