Che
surname · Latin script
Meaning: The letter Ч, ч
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/t͡ʃə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Che is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Malaysia it is the 29th most common surname.
- MYMalaysia≈1 in 326(inferred from the name graph)
- IDIndonesia≈1 in 5K
- HKHong Kong≈1 in 5.6K
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
- 114 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 326 (inferred from the name graph)
≈130,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Malaysia, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
The letter Ч, ч.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 14 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Che 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 | — | ≈130,000 est. | ≈1 in 11K | — | Che | 7 |
| MY Malaysia | #29 | ≈100,000 est. | ≈1 in 326 | — | Che | 114 |
| ID Indonesia | — | ≈53,000 est. | ≈1 in 5K | — | Che | 73 |
| US United States | — | 2,393 | 1 in 139K | 3.3K | Che | 47 |
| HK Hong Kong | — | ≈1,300 est. | ≈1 in 5.6K | — | Che | 14 |
| SG Singapore | — | ≈330 est. | ≈1 in 19K | — | Che | 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: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020. 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)
Che 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 dag, leave (sth.) alone; let, allow che bahi ‘leave (sth.) behind. KO omit; despise’ che (sheli) niqbu ‘desist’ che paq ‘forgive ‘ (lit. ‘leave (and) lend’) che labi ‘leave (and) go.back; forsake’ di che ‘so that’ (‘it causes..’) dima n-ni che ‘that will let’ din che ‘for that reason’ (‘which causes (that..)’)
as a wordDagbani Dictionary CD
In cdo, ^ Che. A coll. word ； as ^che (chii, wet, soaked, as cakes ； dull, stupid. £ Che. A coll- word : to wrench tlie ioot to one iiirlc ； met" to fail partially in business ； stopped, iiiterniptcHl, ； is from tlie plots of others, £ Che. A cpll. Avord : to crowd, to press forward, to force your Avay : ich'e kwd* to crowd by ； iche H《 to tlirow down by pressing against.
as a wordAn Alphabetic Dictionary of the Chinese Language in the Foochow Dialect
In sit-pro, break, lop off
as a wordStarLing Tower of Babel etymological databases (Starostin et al.)
In io, at, in, to (someone in his or her house, home or place), with (a people, in respect of their customs)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Japanese, The katakana syllable チェ (che) in Hepburn-like romanization.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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)
- He Xiangningb. 1878CNnot in their usual nameChinese politician and artist (1878-1972)
- Stanley Hob. 1921CNnot in their usual nameMacau gambling magnate (1921–2020)
- David Hob. 1952USnot in their usual nameTaiwanese-American physician and scientist
- Ho Chingb. 1953SGnot in their usual nameSingaporean businesswoman and Spouse of the Prime Minister of Singapore
- Edmund Ho Hau Wahb. 1955CNnot in their usual nameChinese politician
- Renhōb. 1967JPnot in their usual nameJapanese politician (born 1967)
- Xie Junb. 1970CNnot in their usual nameChinese chess player
- Nicholas Tseb. 1980CAnot in their usual nameHong Kong singer, actor, songwriter and chef (born 1980)
- Jiankui Heb. 1984CNnot in their usual nameChinese biophysicist (1984-)
- Ricky Heb. 1995CAnot in their usual nameCanadian actor
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 64 sources across 36 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 3.3K | #9,550 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 2.4K | #12,865 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 1.5K | #17,363 |
Reference works 6
- 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)
- Ethiopian name tokens (GitHub lehagere/ethiopian-names, 40/60 condominium list)
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 Che mean, and where does it come from?
- The letter Ч, ч. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Che?
- A machine transcription gives /t͡ʃə/ (IPA) for Malay.
- In which country does Che have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 129 thousand people named Che in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled che.
- How common is the name Che?
- In the United States, the national register counted 2,393 people named Che in 2010, about 1 in 139 thousand residents.
- How common is Che compared with other names?
- In Malaysia, Che is the 29th most common surname of 291,743 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Che?
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/cheThe 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, “Che” — the 29th most common surname in Malaysia. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.