Hu

surname · Latin script

Meaning: (i) from the Chinese personal name Hu; (ii) person from Youhu, a Chinese state in the Xia dynasty

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

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

Hu is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Singapore it is the 69th most common surname.

rarermore common
  • TWTaiwan≈1 in 334(inferred from the name graph)
  • NLNetherlands1 in 9.6K
  • CNChina≈1 in 195as Xu

carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Hu itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

China (inferred from the name graph)

≈7,200,000 named Xu, est.

4 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
440 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 334 (inferred from the name graph)

Taiwan, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

HoaLatin(measured from records)
СюйCyrillic(measured from records)
ჰუGeorgian(measured from records)
ΞουGreek(measured from records)

3 other spellings are counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Xu in US United States, CN China, SG Singapore and 3 more and Hoa in VN Vietnam.

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)

(i) from the Chinese personal name Hu; (ii) person from Youhu, a Chinese state in the Xia dynasty.

Sources 1

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

Attested across 5 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Hu 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 Hu is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
CN China#315≈7,200,000 est.≈1 in 195—Xu237
VN Vietnam#79≈160,000 est.≈1 in 622listedHoa217
TW Taiwan#284≈71,000 est.≈1 in 334—Xu102
US United States#77825,622as Xu1 in 13K44KXu440
ID Indonesia—≈17,000 est.≈1 in 16KlistedHu83
HK Hong Kong#82≈6,800 est.≈1 in 1.1K—Xu97
SG Singapore#69≈3,600 est.≈1 in 1.7K—Xu119
NL Netherlands#2231,8091 in 9.6K1.8KXu75

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; CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007). 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)

Hu is also recorded as 4 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Spanish surname7 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Mexico, China, Chile

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Hú, Hü, Hụ, Hư, Hű

  • a separate name6 spellings in the group

    Also written Hū, Hü, Hũ, Hú, Hû

  • French surname10 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, China, United States, Canada

    Also written Hû, Hü, Hù, Hǔ, Hủ

  • Korean surname8 spellings in the group

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

    Also written 후, 하후, Hủ, Hự, Hû

76 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)

Hu 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.

  • nickname from Old French hu ‘outcry’, ‘noise’ (the same word as gave rise to the English phrase ‘hue and cry’, which referred to a clamour raised when in pursuit of a criminal); compare Huard

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

  • from part of the name of the state of Youhu, which existed during the Xia dynasty (2205-1766 BC). Its residents subsequently adopted the second character of the name, Hu, as their surname.

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

  • In English, A common surname from Chinese of east Asian derivation.

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

  • 4. Mexican (Maya): nickname meaning ‘iguana’.

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

  • In Akan, l.i.he perceived (saw) ... p. 193. 1. 1. ouh^ akyiri ade, he cannot see afar off, 2Pe.l,9, onha akyiri, he does not know how it will end. - 5. 1. 3. take care of (x guard) - 6*. connection (>c cotnmerce with),- 7.8.-\- hu amanne tra mu, to endure. He. 12 J. - 9. bu ioa,-r to spare. Je,13,l4

    as a wordDictionary of the Asante and Fante Language called Tshi (Chwee, Twi)

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)

17001800190020002100Hồ Xuân Hương, b. 1772Hu Shih, b. 1891Hu Yaobang, b. 1915Gordon Wu, b. 1935Hu Jintao, b. 1942Kelly Hu, b. 1968Hu Jun, b. 1968Hu Jia, b. 1973Hu Bo, b. 1988Madison Hu, b. 2002
  • Hồ Xuân Hươngb. 1772VNnot in their usual nameVietnamese poet (1772–1822)
  • Hu Shihb. 1891TWChinese scholar, writer and philosopher (1891–1962)
  • Hu Yaobangb. 1915CNChinese politician (1915-1989), former General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party
  • Gordon Wub. 1935CNnot in their usual nameHong Kong businessman
  • Hu Jintaob. 1942CNformer General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party
  • Kelly Hub. 1968USAmerican actress
  • Hu Junb. 1968CNChinese actor
  • Hu Jiab. 1973CNChinese activist
  • Hu Bob. 1988CNChinese novelist and film director (1988-2017)
  • Madison Hub. 2002USAmerican actress

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 Hu,
InformalHello,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 47 sources across 25 countries.

Official registers attesting Hu
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020202030K#1,164
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010201020K#1,797
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000200012K#2,747
NL NetherlandsCBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007)20071.8K#732
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

Reference works 5

  • 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
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
  • jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)

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 Hu mean, and where does it come from?
(i) from the Chinese personal name Hu; (ii) person from Youhu, a Chinese state in the Xia dynasty. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
How common is the name Hu?
In the Netherlands, the national register counted 1,809 people named Hu in 2007, about 1 in 9.6 thousand residents.
How common is Hu compared with other names?
In China, Hu is the 315th most common surname of 142,871 surnames recorded there.
How do you pronounce Hu?
A machine transcription gives /ˈhu/ (IPA) for English.
In which country does Hu have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 7.2 million people named Xu in China, more than in any other country we hold.

What do you want to know about Hu?

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

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

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, “Hu” — the 315th most common surname in China. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Hu parses inside a full name →