Kho
surname · Latin script
Meaning: A Chinese surname from Hokkien, commonly found in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, most notably borne by
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/hoʊ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Kho is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Indonesia than in any other country.
- INIndia1 in 298K(measured from records)
- MYMalaysia≈1 in 2.9K
- SGSingapore≈1 in 6.7K
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.
- Indonesia (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 25 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 2.9K (inferred from the name graph)
≈28,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Malaysia, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
A Chinese surname from Hokkien, commonly found in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, most notably borne by
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Kho 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ID Indonesia | ≈28,000 est. | ≈1 in 9.6K | listed | — | 1 |
| MY Malaysia | ≈11,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.9K | — | Kho | 18 |
| PH Philippines | ≈6,500 est. | ≈1 in 17K | — | Kho | 20 |
| IN India | 4,457 | 1 in 298K | 4.5K | Kho | 25 |
| VN Vietnam | ≈1,800 est. | ≈1 in 55K | listed | — | — |
| SG Singapore | ≈920 est. | ≈1 in 6.7K | — | Kho | 14 |
| AU Australia | ≈480 est. | ≈1 in 53K | 1 | — | — |
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: Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls; SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present). 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)
Kho 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.
In Chinese, variant, common in Indonesia, of Gao.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In Finnish, initialism of korkein hallinto-oikeus (“(in Finland) the Supreme Administrative Court”)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Xhosa, Combining stem of wena used with possessive concords.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
ISO 639-2 & ISO 639-3 language code for Khotanese.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Filipino, a Chinese Filipino surname from Hokkien
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)
- Koo In-hwoib. 1907KRnot in their usual nameSouth Korean businessman; co-founder of LG Group (1907–1969)
- Kwa Geok Choob. 1920SGnot in their usual nameSingaporean lawyer (1920-2010)
- Ko Wen-jeb. 1959TWnot in their usual namephysician and former Mayor of Taipei
- Lawrence Kob. 1977TWnot in their usual nameTaiwanese actor, singer
- Giddens Kob. 1978TWnot in their usual nameTaiwanese writer and director
- Koo Kyo-hwanb. 1982KRnot in their usual nameSouth Korean film director and actor
- Koo Hye-sunb. 1984KRnot in their usual nameSouth Korean actress, director and singer
- Koo Ja-cheolb. 1989KRnot in their usual nameSouth Korean footballer
- Goo Harab. 1991KRnot in their usual nameSouth Korean pop singer (1991–2019)
- Ko Chen-tungb. 1991TWnot 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)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 23 sources across 14 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IN India | Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls | — | 4.5K | #1,707 |
| IN India | Instate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls | — | 62 | #2,377 |
| IN India | Instate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls | — | 7 | #22,227 |
| IN India | Instate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls | — | 5 | #3,250 |
Reference works 4
- 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)
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 Kho mean, and where does it come from?
- A Chinese surname from Hokkien, commonly found in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, most notably borne by Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Kho?
- A machine transcription gives /hoʊ/ (IPA) for Hindi.
- In which country does Kho have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 28 thousand people named Kho in Indonesia, more than in any other country we hold.
- How common is the name Kho?
- In India, the national register counted 4,457 people named Kho, about 1 in 298 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Kho?
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/khoThe 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, “Kho”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.