Kau

surname · Latin script

Meaning, in Malay: Second-person singular pronoun: you, your, yours (kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations))

(measured from records)Officially recorded in 16 countries · latest register: Census Bureau, 2020

/kau/(machine-generated) Spanish · model-generated · uncertain

Say it inExplore pronunciation →

Kau is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in South Africa than in any other country.

  • ZASouth Africa≈1 in 14K(inferred from the name graph)
  • HKHong Kong≈1 in 17Kfew records
  • MYMalaysia≈1 in 22K

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.

South Africa (inferred from the name graph)

≈4,500 people, est.

Record sources
203 (measured from records)

corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling

strongest: highest-authority source

≈1 in 14K (inferred from the name graph)

South Africa, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)Make your nomograph ✦

How to pronounce Kau

  • Spanish:/kau/(machine-generated) model-generated
  • Malay:/kau/(machine-generated) model-generated
  • Swahili:/kau/(machine-generated) model-generated

Readings marked model-generated were transcribed by a model; the others are quoted from the dictionary named.

Meaning & origin

(measured from records)

Upper German form related to Hau; compare mhd. kaw/kouwe ‘miner's hut’

Cited for this meaning 1

  • Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung

Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.

How Kau is read

(measured from records)

Kau is one spelling over 5 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.

  • English43%

    division, HI

    as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names

  • Hindi12%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Kau in Hindi.

  • Spanish7.6%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Kau in Spanish.

  • Malay7.5%

    Second-person singular pronoun: you, your, yours

    as a wordrecorded as Indonesiankaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

    you, your

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

  • Swahili6.0%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Kau in Swahili.

The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.

Where the surname Kau is found

(measured from records)

Kau 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 Kau is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
ZA South Africa—≈4,500 est.≈1 in 14K—Kau22
MY Malaysia—≈1,600 est.≈1 in 22K—Kau42
DE Germany—≈950 est.≈1 in 88K—Kau76
US United States—9191 in 362K972Kau203
MX Mexico—≈530 est.≈1 in 248K9——
HK Hong Kong#787≈440 est.≈1 in 17K—Kau38
PG Papua New Guinea—≈120 est.≈1 in 87K6—1
SG Singapore—≈90 est.≈1 in 67K—Kau29

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; RENAPO — name frequencies (eduardofv dataset); PNG Election Results Database — candidate names (1972–2022). 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)

Kau is also recorded as 5 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 Mexico, United States, Brazil, Peru

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Kaú, Käü, Kấu, Kậu

  • Swahili surname2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, South Africa, Kenya, India

    Also written Ka'U

  • a separate surname8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, India, Malaysia

    Also written Káu, Kâụ, Kâu, Kầu, Kạu

  • a separate name4 spellings in the group

    Also written Ka̱u, Kâu, Kaú

  • French surname6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, South Africa, United States, Malaysia

    Also written Käû, Kậu, Kaù, Kầu

51 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)

Kau 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 German, Upper German form related to Hau; compare mhd. kaw/kouwe ‘miner's hut’

    as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung

  • from Middle High German gehau ‘(mountain) clearing’, hence a topographic name for a mountain dweller or possibly an occupational name for a logger.

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

  • topographic name for someone who lived by a mineshaft, from Middle High GOTnan kouw(e) ‘mining hut’.

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

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)
1960197019801990Herman Yau, b. 1961Chingmy Yau, b. 1968Roy Chiu, b. 1981
  • Herman Yaub. 1961CNnot in their usual nameHong Kong filmmaker and cinematographer
  • Chingmy Yaub. 1968CNnot in their usual nameHong Kong actress
  • Roy Chiub. 1981TWnot in their usual nameTaiwanese actor and 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)
FormalDear Colleague,
InformalHello,

Evidence

(measured from records)

30 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 16 countries.

Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.

Frequently asked questions

Where does the name Kau come from?
Upper German form related to Hau; compare mhd. kaw/kouwe ‘miner's hut’ Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
How do you pronounce Kau?
It depends on the language: in Spanish /kau/; in Malay /kau/; in Swahili /kau/. Transcriptions are machine-generated except where a dictionary is named.
What does the name Kau mean?
In Malay, Second-person singular pronoun: you, your, yours
Which countries have the most people with the surname Kau?
Mondonomo estimates about 4.5 thousand people named Kau in South Africa, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled kau. After it come Malaysia, Germany, United States and Mexico; the country table on this page ranks them.
How common is the name Kau?
In the United States, the national register counted 919 people named Kau in 2010, about 1 in 362 thousand residents.
How common is Kau compared with other names?
In Hong Kong, Kau is the 787th most common surname of 8,142 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Kau?

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

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, “Kau” — the 787th most common surname in Hong Kong. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.

See how Kau parses inside a full name →