Kang
surname · Latin script
Meaning: A traditional long platform of brick, clay or concrete, used for heating in colder parts of China and suitable for sleeping on at night
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˈkæŋ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Kang is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in South Korea than in any other country, where it is the 6th most common surname.
- MYMalaysia≈1 in 2.2K(inferred from the name graph)
- SGSingapore≈1 in 2.3K
- CNChina≈1 in 2.8K
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 Kang 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.
- South Korea (measured from records)
- #541 (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 456 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 295 (inferred from the name graph)
1,269,290 named 강, 2015
of 19M surnames
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
North Korea, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled 강 in KR South Korea, MO Macao.
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)
A traditional long platform of brick, clay or concrete, used for heating in colder parts of China and suitable for sleeping on at night.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 5 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Kang 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KR South Korea | #6 | 1,269,290as 강 | 1 in 41 | 1.3M | 강 | 265 |
| CN China | — | ≈500,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.8K | — | Kang | 87 |
| KP North Korea | #11 | ≈87,000 est. | ≈1 in 295 | — | Kang | 48 |
| US United States | #990 | 32,221 | 1 in 10K | 35K | Kang | 456 |
| MY Malaysia | #327 | ≈15,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.2K | — | Kang | 100 |
| SG Singapore | #161 | ≈2,700 est. | ≈1 in 2.3K | — | Kang | 139 |
| MO Macao | #37 | ≈1,100 est. | ≈1 in 574 | — | 강 | 4 |
1,269,290 people counted by KOSIS 2015 Census — surname population with hanja variants, 2015. 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: KOSIS 2015 Census — surname population with hanja variants; KOSIS — 2015 census surnames; 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)
Kang 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.
‘Wellbeing’. H
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In Chinese, variant of Geng
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In Lao, m. capital city. A D 2 n) bot. tree with hard wood (like teak) . skill. 2. adj. skillful. and large leaves, Dipterocarpus tuberculatus Roxb. — Ua^j n. expert
as a wordLao-English Dictionary
In cdo, to cut with.a knife, to cut down: <dchudedieananiinconis y mesma reesgser sspears atthe
as a wordDictionary of the Foochow Dialect
In cdo, all countries or nations, internationthe Hague Peace Conference
as a wordDictionary of the Foochow Dialect
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)
- Kang Pan-sŏkb. 1892KPKorean activist (1892-1932)
- Jiang Qingb. 1914CNnot in their usual nameChinese political figure and wife of Mao Zedong (1914–1991)
- Jiang Zeminb. 1926CNnot in their usual nameformer General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (1926–2022)
- Kang Je-gyub. 1962KRSouth Korean film director (born 1962)
- Kang Soo-younb. 1966KRSouth Korean actress (1966–2022)
- Sung Kangb. 1972USAmerican actor
- Tim Kangb. 1973USAmerican actor
- Angela Kangb. 1976USAmerican television writer (born 1976)
- Kang Seul-gib. 1994KRSouth Korean singer
- Kang Danielb. 1996KRSouth Korean singer
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 56 sources across 29 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| KR South Korea | KOSIS — 2015 census surnames | 2015 | 1.3M | #7 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 35K | #985 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 32K | #1,084 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 24K | #1,380 |
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)
- 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 Kang mean, and where does it come from?
- A traditional long platform of brick, clay or concrete, used for heating in colder parts of China and suitable for sleeping on at night. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Kang?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈkæŋ/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Kang have the most bearers?
- In South Korea, the national register counted about 1.3 million people named 강, more than in any other country we hold.
- How common is the name Kang?
- In the United States, the national register counted 32,221 people named Kang in 2010, about 1 in 10 thousand residents.
- How common is Kang compared with other names?
- In South Korea, Kang is the 6th most common surname of 14,133 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Kang?
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/kangThe 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, “Kang” — the 6th most common surname in South Korea. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.