Pun
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in English: also occasionally found in English parish registers from the 16th century onwards. The origin is unexplained
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/pʌn/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Pun is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- MYMalaysia≈1 in 16K(inferred from the name graph)
- HKHong Kong≈1 in 1.1K
- NPNepal1 in 3.1K
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.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 229 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.1K (inferred from the name graph)
≈26,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Hong Kong, est.
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)
also occasionally found in English parish registers from the 16th century onwards. The origin is unexplained.
Sources 1
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
Attested across 8 languages in the etymology graph.
How Pun is read(measured from records)
Pun is one spelling over 6 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.
- English33%
also occasionally found in English parish registers from the 16th century onwards. The origin is unexplained.
as a nameThe Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
To beat; strike with force; to ram; to pound, as in a mortar; reduce to powder, to pulverize.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Hindi17%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Pun in Hindi.
- Chinese6.3%
Bowl
as a wordrecorded as wuuA Vocabulary of the Shanghai Dialect
- Nepali6.1%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Pun in Nepali.
- Arabic5.8%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Pun in Arabic.
- Spanish5.4%
the sound of discharging a firearm
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)
Pun 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 | — | ≈26,000 est. | ≈1 in 54K | — | Pun | 20 |
| NP Nepal | — | 9,827 | 1 in 3.1K | 9.8K | — | 5 |
| HK Hong Kong | #247 | ≈6,300 est. | ≈1 in 1.1K | — | Pun | 81 |
| MY Malaysia | — | ≈2,100 est. | ≈1 in 16K | — | Pun | 43 |
| IN India | — | 1,471 | 1 in 901K | 1.5K | Pun | 43 |
| PG Papua New Guinea | — | ≈220 est. | ≈1 in 32K | 1 | — | 2 |
| SG Singapore | — | ≈200 est. | ≈1 in 32K | — | Pun | 32 |
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: NPHC 2021 — Population by caste/ethnicity group (national), surname-shaped categories only; Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls; PNG Election Results Database — candidate names (1972–2022). 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)
Pun 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.
Wild rose.
as a nameThe African book of names
In dra-nor-pro, sore, wound
as a wordStarLing Tower of Babel etymological databases (Starostin et al.)
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)
- Phan Huy Quatb. 1911VNnot in their usual namePrime minister of South Vietnam (1911-1979)
- Márta Pánb. 1923HUnot in their usual namesculptor from Hungary and France (1923-2008)
- Rebecca Panb. 1931CNnot in their usual nameChinese actress and singer
- Pan Yueb. 1960CNnot in their usual nameChinese politician
- Pan Jianweib. 1970CNnot in their usual nameChinese quantum physicist and university administrator
- Pan Yuemingb. 1974CNnot in their usual nameChinese actor
- Wilber Panb. 1980USnot in their usual nameTaiwanese-American singer, actor and entrepreneur
- Jennifer Panb. 1986CAnot in their usual nameCanadian convicted murderer
- Pan Cheng-tsungb. 1991TWnot in their usual nameTaiwanese golfer (1991-)
- Pan Zhanleb. 2004CNnot in their usual nameChinese swimmer
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NP Nepal | NPHC 2021 — Population by caste/ethnicity group (national), surname-shaped categories only | 2021 | 9.8K | #78 |
| IN India | Instate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls | — | 2.1K | #422 |
| IN India | Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls | — | 1.5K | #4,020 |
| NP Nepal | Wikidata humans by citizenship — given & family names | — | 2 | #63 |
Reference works 3
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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
- How do you pronounce Pun?
- A machine transcription gives /pʌn/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Pun mean, and where does it come from?
- also occasionally found in English parish registers from the 16th century onwards. The origin is unexplained. Recorded by The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland.
- In which country does Pun have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 26 thousand people named Pun in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled pun.
- How common is the name Pun?
- In Nepal, the national register counted 9,827 people named Pun in 2021, about 1 in 3.1 thousand residents.
- How common is Pun compared with other names?
- In Hong Kong, Pun is the 247th most common surname of 8,142 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Pun?
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/punThe 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, “Pun” — the 247th most common surname in Hong Kong. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.