Ngo
surname · Latin script
Meaning: Initialism of non-governmental organization
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Ngo is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Vietnam than in any other country, where it is the 13th most common surname.
- VNVietnam≈1 in 182(inferred from the name graph)
- CMCameroon≈1 in 219
- USUnited States1 in 4.6Kas Wu
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 Ngo 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.
- Vietnam (inferred from the name graph)
- #927 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 418 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 182 (inferred from the name graph)
≈540,000 people, est.
of 19M surnames
Highest-authority source
Vietnam, 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)
Initialism of non-governmental organization.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 13 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Ngo 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VN Vietnam | #13 | ≈540,000 est. | ≈1 in 182 | 76 | Ngo | 216 |
| CM Cameroon | #1 | ≈130,000 est. | ≈1 in 219 | — | Ngo | 47 |
| US United States | — | 71,721as Wu | 1 in 4.6K | 98K | Ngo | 418 |
| AO Angola | #57 | ≈20,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.7K | — | Ngo | 4 |
| ES Spain | — | 8,880as Wu | 1 in 5.6K | 8.9K | Ngo | 27 |
| NO Norway | — | 1,206 | 1 in 4.5K | 1.2K | — | 31 |
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: The page provides an analysis of the performance of Vietnamese surname lists in identifying Vietnamese individuals for r; 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); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population). 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)
Ngo 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.
Leopard.
as a nameThe African book of names
unexplained.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In cdo, 1^ I Read ^ngu; coll. ngo、 ： five : sek ^ ngo》 fifteen ； IT* ng& the 5th day of the 5th ZXi raoon ； nik^ ngo^ the 25 th day of a month ； pai ' ngo^ Friday; ^《 ngo、 fifth brother ； 7igo^ V'eif chHo^ a bouse five posts (deep) ； ngo^ fihHmgtieu^ 5,000,000 of cash ； ng& tdi^ ^tung ^tong^ five coteraporary generations in a family.
as a wordAn Alphabetic Dictionary of the Chinese Language in the Foochow Dialect
In men, sound, voice, word, report, advice. I ngod wilia nhgi ma. Negiye nga wa ghoma hi wé a ngo. Ngo yéla la, one word, mouth = conspiracy, plot. I. ngdi ji ge a tié, He revealed to them the plot; bargain. Ti, wa ngo yéla ht, They enter
as a wordVocabulary of the Mende Language
In men, an elderly person; any grown-up person whose name his younger brothers or sisters are
as a wordVocabulary of the Mende Language
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)
- Plaek Phibunsongkhramb. 1897THnot in their usual namePrime Minister of Thailand, 1938–44 and 1948–57 (1897–1964)
- Momofuku Andob. 1910JPnot in their usual nameTaiwanese-Japanese businessman, created instant noodle (ramyeon), Nissin Chikin Ramen
- Chien-Shiung Wub. 1912USnot in their usual nameChinese-American physicist (1912–1997) (death at 85 years)
- Wu Yib. 1938CNnot in their usual nameVice Premier of China
- Goh Chok Tongb. 1941SGnot in their usual name2nd Prime Minister of Singapore from 1990 to 2004
- John Woob. 1946CNnot in their usual nameHong Kong film director, screenwriter and film producer
- John Loneb. 1952USnot in their usual nameAmerican actor
- Ping Wub. 1956USnot in their usual nameAmerican actor
- Daniel Wub. 1974USnot in their usual nameAmerican actor
- Kris Wub. 1990CNnot in their usual nameChinese-born Canadian rapper and convicted sex criminal (1990–)
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 46 sources across 24 countries.
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)
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
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 Ngo mean, and where does it come from?
- Initialism of non-governmental organization. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- In which country does Ngo have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 542 thousand people named Ngo in Vietnam, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled ngo.
- How common is the name Ngo?
- In Norway, the national register counted 1,206 people named Ngo, about 1 in 4.5 thousand residents.
- How common is Ngo compared with other names?
- In Vietnam, Ngo is the 13th most common surname of 62,915 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Ngo?
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/ngoThe 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, “Ngo” — the 13th most common surname in Vietnam. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.