Tong

surname · Latin script

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

Tong is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In English, recorded as from OE tunge ‘tongue’, a nickname for a chatter-box or scold; from Tong (Salop, WRYorks) or Tonge (Kent, Lancs, Leics), or a dwelling by a tongue of land; first attested Wluricus Tunge 1188 BuryS (Sf.

rarermore common
  • HKHong Kong≈1 in 326(inferred from the name graph)
  • MYMalaysia≈1 in 2K
  • CNChina≈1 in 2.3K

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)

≈600,000 people, est.

Sources
418 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 326 (inferred from the name graph)

Hong Kong, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

from OE tunge ‘tongue’, a nickname for a chatter-box or scold; from Tong (Salop, WRYorks) or Tonge (Kent, Lancs, Leics), or a dwelling by a tongue of land; first attested Wluricus Tunge 1188 BuryS (Sf)

Sources 1

  • A Dictionary of English Surnames

Attested across 20 languages in the etymology graph.

How Tong is read(measured from records)

Tong is one spelling over 4 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.

  • English58%

    from OE tunge ‘tongue’, a nickname for a chatter-box or scold; from Tong (Salop, WRYorks) or Tonge (Kent, Lancs, Leics), or a dwelling by a tongue of land; first attested Wluricus Tunge 1188 BuryS (Sf)

    as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames

    maker or user of tongs (OE tang(e)). 2. habitation name from any of the various places, for example in Lancs., Shrops., and W Yorks., called Tong from their situation by a fork in a road or river. 3. nickname for a chatterbox or a scold or for someone with some deformity of the tongue,

    as a nameThe Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles

    An instrument or tool used for manipulating things in a fire without touching them with the hands.

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • Chinese9.0%

    nonstandard spelling of tōng

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

    Ticket (pawnbrokers)

    as a wordrecorded as wuuA Vocabulary of the Shanghai Dialect

    Empty-handed

    as a wordrecorded as wuuAn English-Chinese Vocabulary of the Shanghai Dialect

  • Vietnamese7.7%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Tong in Vietnamese.

  • Malay5.4%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Tong in Malay.

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)

Tong 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.

Where Tong is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
CN China—≈600,000 est.≈1 in 2.3K—Tong88
HK Hong Kong#121≈22,000 est.≈1 in 326—Tong113
MY Malaysia#334≈16,000 est.≈1 in 2K—Tong101
US United States—13,1961 in 25K15KTong418
CA Canada—≈3,600 est.≈1 in 10K1Tong200
AU Australia#743≈3,000 est.≈1 in 8.6K1Tong183
SG Singapore#203≈2,600 est.≈1 in 2.4K—Tong133

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; SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present); 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Tong is also recorded as 8 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Vietnamese surname59 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Vietnam, United States, Hong Kong, China

    Languages: Vietnamese, Khmer

    Also written Song, Tống, Tổng, Tòng, Sống

  • Malay surname7 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, United States

    Languages: Malay, Indonesian

    Also written Tống, Tòng, Tonğ, Tông, Tổng

  • Spanish surname16 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Peru, China, Colombia

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Tonğ, Tống, Tọng, Tổng, Tóng

  • Korean surname9 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Malaysia, South Korea, China

    Also written 통, 통호, 통제, Tóng, Tòng

  • a separate name7 spellings in the group

    Also written Tông, Tǒng, Tó̂ng, Tòng, Tổng

  • a separate surname18 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, China, United Kingdom, Canada

    Also written Tồng, Tống, Tông, Tỏng, Tõng

  • French surname8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, China, Canada

    Also written Tống, Tòng, Töng, Ţoňĝ, Tổng

  • Thai given name165 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Thailand, United States, Malaysia, Philippines

    Languages: Thai, Lao

    Also written ทอง, ทองใบ, ตรัง, Thong, Thongbai

65 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Notable people with this name(measured from records)

14001600180020002200Johann Adam Schall von Bell, b. 1592Anote Tong, b. 1952Stanley Tong, b. 1960Pete Tong, b. 1960Tang Yijun, b. 1961Vincent Tong, b. 1979Audrey Tang, b. 1981Tong Wen, b. 1983Dong Fangzhuo, b. 1985Tang Chih-Chun, b. 2001
  • Johann Adam Schall von Bellb. 1592DEnot in their usual nameGerman astronomer and Jesuit missionary active in China (1592-1666)
  • Anote Tongb. 1952KII-Kiribati politician
  • Stanley Tongb. 1960CNHong Kong film director
  • Pete Tongb. 1960GBEnglish DJ, music producer and radio presenter
  • Tang Yijunb. 1961CNnot in their usual nameChinese politician
  • Vincent Tongb. 1979CACanadian voice actor
  • Audrey Tangb. 1981TWnot in their usual nameTaiwanese activist, politician and free software programmer
  • Tong Wenb. 1983CNChinese judoka
  • Dong Fangzhuob. 1985CNnot in their usual nameChinese footballer
  • Tang Chih-Chunb. 2001TWnot in their usual nameTaiwanese archer (2001-)

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 56 sources across 28 countries.

Official registers attesting Tong
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020202015K#2,409
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010201013K#2,730
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000200011K#3,074

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)
  • Ismlar.com — Uzbek given-name dictionary (meanings, gender, origin)

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 Tong mean, and where does it come from?
from OE tunge ‘tongue’, a nickname for a chatter-box or scold; from Tong (Salop, WRYorks) or Tonge (Kent, Lancs, Leics), or a dwelling by a tongue of land; first attested Wluricus Tunge 1188 BuryS (Sf… Recorded by A Dictionary of English Surnames.
What are other forms of the name Tong?
In the etymology graph, Zange is a form of the same name in other languages.
In which country does Tong have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 603 thousand people named Tong in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled tong.
How common is the name Tong?
In the United States, the national register counted 13,196 people named Tong in 2010, about 1 in 25 thousand residents.
How common is Tong compared with other names?
In Hong Kong, Tong is the 121st most common surname of 8,142 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Tong?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/tong

The 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, “Tong” — the 121st most common surname in Hong Kong. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Tong parses inside a full name →