Chew

surname · Latin script

Meaning: (i) ‘person from Chew’, Somerset or Lancashire/Yorkshire; (ii) nickname for someone resembling a chough, e.g

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

/tʃu/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Chew is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Malaysia than in any other country. In Singapore it is the 41st most common surname.

rarermore common
  • MYMalaysia≈1 in 554(inferred from the name graph)
  • SGSingapore≈1 in 701
  • AUAustralia≈1 in 9.9K

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.

Malaysia (inferred from the name graph)

≈59,000 people, est.

Sources
393 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 554 (inferred from the name graph)

Malaysia, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

(i) ‘person from Chew’, Somerset or Lancashire/Yorkshire; (ii) nickname for someone resembling a chough, e.g. talkative or light-fingered

Sources 1

  • Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]

Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Chew 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 Chew is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
MY Malaysia#144≈59,000 est.≈1 in 554—Chew130
CN China—≈40,000 est.≈1 in 34K—Chew32
US United States—8,9051 in 37K8.9KChew393
SG Singapore#41≈8,900 est.≈1 in 701—Chew180
AU Australia#840≈2,600 est.≈1 in 9.9K—Chew176
GB United Kingdom—≈2,300 est.≈1 in 28KlistedChew156
CA Canada—≈1,600 est.≈1 in 24K—Chew135

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; the hanks-dictionary-surnames-1988 register. 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)

Chew is also recorded as 3 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Indonesian surname2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Malaysia, Indonesia, United States, Singapore

    Also written Çhew

  • Chinese surname4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Malaysia, United States, Singapore, China

    Also written Chewy, Chëw, Čhew

  • Hindi surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Malaysia, Singapore, United States, United Kingdom

    Languages: Hindi, Urdu

    Also written Čhew

61 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.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Chew is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In English, (i) from Chew, Somerset; first attested Randal de Chiw 1201 AssSo. (ii) from OE cīo/cēo ‘crow-family bird, esp. jackdaw’; first attested Geoffrey Chiue 1203 Cur (C)

    as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames

  • In English, To crush with the teeth by repeated closing and opening of the jaws; done to food to soften it and break it down by the action of saliva before it is swallowed.

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

  • In English, v., nyima, nyima- ngo; also mbaht nyuma- ngo. To half chew, majo- ya, majoso

    as a wordVocabulary of the Mende Language

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)

1850190019502000Lu Xun, b. 1881Zhou Enlai, b. 1898Han Suyin, b. 1917Tsai Chin, b. 1936Michael Chow, b. 1939Chow Yun-fat, b. 1955Jay Chou, b. 1979Agnes Chow, b. 1996Zhou Guanyu, b. 1999Chou Tzuyu, b. 1999
  • Lu Xunb. 1881CNnot in their usual nameChinese novelist and essayist (1881–1936)
  • Zhou Enlaib. 1898CNnot in their usual name1st Premier of the People's Republic of China
  • Han Suyinb. 1917CNnot in their usual namephysician and author (1917–2012)
  • Tsai Chinb. 1936CNnot in their usual nameChinese-born British actress
  • Michael Chowb. 1939CNnot in their usual nameChinese-born American actor, interior designer and restaurateur
  • Chow Yun-fatb. 1955CNnot in their usual nameHong Kong actor
  • Jay Choub. 1979TWnot in their usual nameTaiwanese pop singer, songwriter, and actor
  • Agnes Chowb. 1996CNnot in their usual nameHong Kong political activist
  • Zhou Guanyub. 1999CNnot in their usual nameChinese racing driver
  • Chou Tzuyub. 1999TWnot in their usual nameTaiwanese singer (born 1999)

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)

FormalDear Chew,
InformalHello,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 27 sources across 16 countries.

Official registers attesting Chew
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 201020108.9K#3,988
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 200020008.5K#3,831
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 202020208.5K#4,073
GB United KingdomA Dictionary of Surnames (Hanks & Hodges, 1988)———
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

Reference works 4

  • 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)

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

Where does the name Chew come from?
(i) ‘person from Chew’, Somerset or Lancashire/Yorkshire; (ii) nickname for someone resembling a chough, e.g. talkative or light-fingered Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
How do you pronounce Chew?
A machine transcription gives /tʃu/ (IPA) for English.
What does the name Chew mean?
Recorded meaning: (i) ‘person from Chew’, Somerset or Lancashire/Yorkshire; (ii) nickname for someone resembling a chough, e.g.
In which country does Chew have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 59 thousand people named Chew in Malaysia, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled chew.
How common is the name Chew?
In the United States, the national register counted 8,905 people named Chew in 2010, about 1 in 37 thousand residents.
How common is Chew compared with other names?
In Malaysia, Chew is the 144th most common surname of 291,743 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Chew?

Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.

Please leave out anyone's personal details (see Privacy).

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

The 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, “Chew” — the 144th most common surname in Malaysia. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Chew parses inside a full name →