Pan
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in English: probably metonymic for PANNER; first attested Lefwin Panne 1176 P (Nth), c1250 Rams (Nf)
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/pæn/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Pan is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- INIndia1 in 58K(measured from records)
- CNChina≈1 in 834
- HKHong Kong≈1 in 2.2K
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 Pan 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
- 100 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 834 (inferred from the name graph)
≈1,700,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
China, 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)
probably metonymic for PANNER; first attested Lefwin Panne 1176 P (Nth), c1250 Rams (Nf)
Sources 1
- A Dictionary of English Surnames
Attested across 9 languages in the etymology graph.
How Pan is read(measured from records)
Pan is one spelling over 4 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 3 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.
- English35%
probably metonymic for PANNER; first attested Lefwin Panne 1176 P (Nth), c1250 Rams (Nf)
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
Greek god of nature, often visualized as half goat and half man playing pipes. His Roman counterpart is Faunus.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Greek god of shepherds & flocks
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
- Chinese19%
nonstandard spelling of pān
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Hindi15%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Pan in Hindi.
- Spanish6.0%
initialism of w:es:Partido Acción Nacional (“National Action Party”), a conservative political party.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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)
Pan 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 | ≈1,700,000 est. | ≈1 in 834 | — | Pan | 31 |
| US United States | 37,571as Bean | 1 in 8.9K | 38K | Pan | 88 |
| IN India | 22,805 | 1 in 58K | 23K | Pan | 100 |
| PK Pakistan | ≈6,400 est. | ≈1 in 36K | — | Pan | 12 |
| MY Malaysia | ≈6,200 est. | ≈1 in 5.2K | — | Pan | 18 |
| HK Hong Kong | ≈3,200 est. | ≈1 in 2.2K | — | Pan | 16 |
| UY Uruguay | 655 | 1 in 5.2K | 655 | — | — |
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: Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; 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)
Pan is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Italian, forma dialetal setentrional, redução de Pane
as a nameDicionário dos sobrenomes italianos
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)
- Ban Gub. 32CNnot in their usual nameChinese historian, politician and poet (AD 32–92)
- Ban Chaob. 32CNnot in their usual nameChinese military general, explorer and diplomat (32–102 CE)
- Ban Zhaob. 45not in their usual namelate 1st/early 2nd century Chinese historian, philosopher and scholar
- Ban Jieyub. 48CNnot in their usual nameChinese scholar, poet and writer
- Márta Pánb. 1923HUsculptor from Hungary and France (1923-2008)
- Ban Ki-moonb. 1944KRnot in their usual name8th Secretary-General of the United Nations
- Pan Yuemingb. 1974CNChinese actor
- Jennifer Panb. 1986CACanadian convicted murderer
- Pan Zhanleb. 2004CNChinese swimmer
- Ban Hyo-jinb. 2007KRnot in their usual nameSouth Korean sports shooter
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 56 sources across 29 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IN India | Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls | — | 23K | #548 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 18K | #1,989 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 13K | #2,847 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 8.1K | #4,004 |
| UY Uruguay | INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public) | — | 655 | — |
| IN India | Instate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls | — | 648 | #993 |
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 Pan mean, and where does it come from?
- probably metonymic for PANNER; first attested Lefwin Panne 1176 P (Nth), c1250 Rams (Nf) Recorded by A Dictionary of English Surnames.
- What are other forms of the name Pan?
- In the etymology graph, Pane, Panadero and Panero are forms of the same name in other languages.
- How do you pronounce Pan?
- A machine transcription gives /pæn/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Pan have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 1.7 million people named Pan in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled pan.
- How common is the name Pan?
- In India, the national register counted 22,805 people named Pan, about 1 in 58 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Pan?
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/panThe 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, “Pan”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.