Geng
surname · Latin script
Meaning: nickname for a lively, alert person, from Middle High German genge ‘sprightly’
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 16 countries · latest register: BFS, 2024
/xenɡ/(machine-generated) Spanish · model-generated · uncertain
Geng is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- CNChina≈1 in 1.6K(inferred from the name graph)
- MYMalaysia≈1 in 67Kfew records
- CHSwitzerland1 in 71K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Countries with no figure are shown too: flat where a national register lists the name without counting it, hatched where only our records hold it. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- Record sources
- 176 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.6K (inferred from the name graph)
≈880,000 people, est.
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
China, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)nickname for a lively, alert person, from Middle High German genge ‘sprightly’.
Cited for this meaning 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested across 6 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Geng 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 | #999 | ≈880,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.6K | — | Geng | 118 |
| US United States | — | 1,146 | 1 in 290K | 1.9K | Geng | 176 |
| MY Malaysia | — | ≈540 est. | ≈1 in 67K | — | Geng | 22 |
| FR France | — | ≈490 est. | ≈1 in 139K | 39 | — | 1 |
| CA Canada | — | ≈310 est. | ≈1 in 135K | — | Geng | 41 |
| TW Taiwan | — | ≈260 est. | ≈1 in 91K | — | Geng | 44 |
| HK Hong Kong | — | ≈180 est. | ≈1 in 42K | — | Geng | 21 |
| CH Switzerland | — | 119 | 1 in 71K | 119 | — | 8 |
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; BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000). 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)Geng 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.
this surname was adopted during the Shang dynasty (1766-1122 BC) by inhabitants of an area called Geng. According to one source, Geng was a state; after it was conquered, some of the inhabitants adopted the name of the state as their surname. According to another source, Geng was the name of the city that was made capital of the region.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In Chinese, nonstandard spelling of gēng
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In cdo, not heard of from the most ancient times
as a wordDictionary of the Foochow Dialect
In enm, alternative form of genge (“band”)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In ang, first/third-person singular past indicative of gangan
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)- Geng Weib. 736Tang dynasty person CBDB = 94204
- Geng Zhongmingb. 1604King/Prince of Jingnan
- Geng Jingzhongb. 1644CNChinese military commander
- Geng Biaob. 1909CNChinese general and diplomat (1909-2000)
- Geng Huichangb. 1951CNChinese politician
- Geng Lijuanb. 1963CNChinese table tennis player
- 耿爽b. 1973CNnot in their usual nameChinese diplomat
- Geng Leb. 1974CNChinese actor
- Geng Junb. 1976CNChinese independent filmmaker (born 1976)
- Keng Po-Hsuanb. 1984TWnot in their usual nameOlympic baseball player
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)30 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 16 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 1.9K | #14,788 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 1.1K | #22,450 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 756 | #29,447 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 119 | #9,652 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1961 | 74 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1951 | 73 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1901 | 66 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1931 | 61 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1981 | 56 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1971 | 56 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1941 | 56 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1921 | 56 | — |
Reference works 6
- 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 surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
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 Geng mean, and where does it come from?
- nickname for a lively, alert person, from Middle High German genge ‘sprightly’. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- How do you pronounce Geng?
- In Spanish /xenɡ/. Transcriptions are machine-generated except where a dictionary is named.
- In which country does Geng have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 879 thousand people named Geng in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled geng.
- How common is the name Geng?
- In the United States, the national register counted 1,146 people named Geng in 2010, about 1 in 290 thousand residents.
- How common is Geng compared with other names?
- In China, Geng is the 999th most common surname of 142,871 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Geng?
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/gengThe 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, “Geng” — the 999th most common surname in China. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.