Wu
surname · Latin script
Meaning: Person from Wu, an ancient Chinese province
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/ˈwu/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Wu is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Hong Kong it is the 22nd most common surname.
- TWTaiwan≈1 in 47(inferred from the name graph)
- CNChina≈1 in 185
- HKHong Kong≈1 in 222
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)
- #844 (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 516 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 47 (inferred from the name graph)
≈7,500,000 people, est.
of 19M surnames
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Taiwan, 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)
Person from Wu, an ancient Chinese province.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 7 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Wu 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 | #316 | ≈7,500,000 est. | ≈1 in 185 | — | Wu | 241 |
| TW Taiwan | #98 | ≈510,000 est. | ≈1 in 47 | — | Wu | 211 |
| US United States | #394 | 71,721 | 1 in 4.6K | 98K | Wu | 516 |
| ID Indonesia | — | ≈35,000 est. | ≈1 in 7.5K | — | Wu | 106 |
| HK Hong Kong | #22 | ≈33,000 est. | ≈1 in 222 | — | Wu | 136 |
| AU Australia | #102 | ≈15,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.7K | 4 | Wu | 246 |
| SG Singapore | #52 | ≈5,300 est. | ≈1 in 1.2K | — | Wu | 154 |
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; Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM). 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)
Wu 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.
In English, Suzhou, a city in southern Jiangsu province in China, whence:
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, long.; pers. name, Chinese
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In och, should not, don't!; don't vb. him/her/it!
as a wordSchuessler, ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese (2007)
In och, to go against; encounter; face to face; turn against; oppose; resist
as a wordSchuessler, ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese (2007)
In kr, tdbera peremgin, I open the door. tdberdma, s. one whose work it is to make doors. tabgdta, a. hacked , hoed. tdbgata, a. put in, filled, (see tdmgin.) tabiskd, s. a thick but small pancake: tabiskd kdngin, I make
as a wordKanuri-English Vocabulary (in African Native Literature)
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)
- Wu Zetianb. 624CNfounding empress of Zhou dynasty (r. 690–705); de facto ruler of Tang dynasty from 665 to 690
- Plaek Phibunsongkhramb. 1897THnot in their usual namePrime Minister of Thailand, 1938–44 and 1948–57 (1897–1964)
- Hu Yaobangb. 1915CNnot in their usual nameChinese politician (1915-1989), former General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party
- Goh Chok Tongb. 1941SGnot in their usual name2nd Prime Minister of Singapore from 1990 to 2004
- Hu Jintaob. 1942CNnot in their usual nameformer General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party
- John Woob. 1946CNnot in their usual nameHong Kong film director, screenwriter and film producer
- John Loneb. 1952USnot in their usual nameAmerican actor
- Kelly Hub. 1968USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress
- Daniel Wub. 1974USAmerican actor
- Kris Wub. 1990CNChinese-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).
How to address them(machine-generated)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 54 sources across 29 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 98K | #318 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 72K | #461 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 46K | #683 |
Reference works 4
- 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)
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 Wu mean, and where does it come from?
- Person from Wu, an ancient Chinese province. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- How do you pronounce Wu?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈwu/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Wu have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 7.5 million people named Wu in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled wu.
- How common is the name Wu?
- In the United States, the national register counted 71,721 people named Wu in 2010, about 1 in 4.6 thousand residents.
- How common is Wu compared with other names?
- In China, Wu is the 316th most common surname of 142,871 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Wu?
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/wuThe 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, “Wu” — the 316th most common surname in China. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.