Ku
given name · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/kʰʉ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Ku is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. Recorded meaning: From Hakka 古 (gǔ).
- MYMalaysia≈1 in 3.1K(inferred from the name graph)
- HKHong Kong≈1 in 13K
- KHCambodia≈1 in 23K
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 Ku 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)
- Sources
- 91 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 3.1K (inferred from the name graph)
≈14,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Malaysia, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Ko in PK Pakistan.
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)
From Hakka 古 (gǔ).
Sources 4
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Digital Pāḷi Dictionary
- Wiktionary
- Schuessler, ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese (2007)
Attested across 11 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Ku 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 | — | ≈14,000 est. | ≈1 in 100K | — | Ku | 17 |
| MY Malaysia | — | ≈10,000 est. | ≈1 in 3.1K | — | Ku | 19 |
| US United States | — | 3,725as Ki | 1 in 89K | 14K | Ku | 66 |
| PK Pakistan | — | ≈1,200 est. | ≈1 in 192K | — | Ko | 10 |
| NL Netherlands | — | 766as Ka | 1 in 23K | 446 | — | 2 |
| KH Cambodia | — | ≈750 est. | ≈1 in 23K | — | Ku | 11 |
| HK Hong Kong | — | ≈580 est. | ≈1 in 13K | — | Ku | 15 |
| SE Sweden | — | 222as Ka | 1 in 46K | 222 | — | 1 |
| IN India | #334 | — | — | — | Ku | 91 |
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 — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population). 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)
Ku is also recorded in 6 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In dag, a negative particle of the future tense, ‘will not’
as a wordDagbani Dictionary CD
In cdo, t Also read ^k^u : to cut •^yl j open ； to rip up, to kill ； to ( cut or hew, as timber ； to • hollow out : "、ku muk. to hollow out a tree ； Jcu (sinff, to make a clean breast.
as a wordAn Alphabetic Dictionary of the Chinese Language in the Foochow Dialect
In Akan, nfi kd wa, the first child born after the death of a husband from his successor (brother or nephew) and named after the former husband; oye k
as a wordDictionary of the Asante and Fante Language called Tshi (Chwee, Twi)
In lua, loc. prep., at, to, unto, direction towards, as far as, near to.
as a wordGrammar and Dictionary of the Buluba-Lulua Language
In men, v., to surpass, to get the mastery; able. Agi ti ma
as a wordVocabulary of the Mende Language
In men, Buttress of a big tree, or wing of a capsule
as a wordMende Natural History Vocabulary
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)
- Ban Gub. 32CNnot in their usual nameChinese historian, politician and poet (AD 32–92)
- Li Gub. 90not in their usual nameEastern Han Dynasty person CBDB = 23153
- Ding Gub. 198not in their usual nameEastern Wu person CBDB = 20614
- Zhang Gub. 1395not in their usual namepolitician
- 鄭逑b. 1543not in their usual nameKorean Joseon dynasty politician and educator, poet (1543-1620)
- Yi Kub. 1931JPKorean prince (1931-2005)
- Shin Goob. 1936KRnot in their usual nameSouth Korean actor
- Gu Zhongyingb. 1965TWnot in their usual nameTaiwanese entrepreneur
- Jin Gunot in their usual nameMing dynasty person CBDB = 128724
- Yuan Gunot in their usual nameMing dynasty person CBDB = 316202
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 39 sources across 22 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 5.8K | #5,790 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 4.9K | #6,877 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 3.8K | #8,131 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 41 | #14,769 |
| NL Netherlands | CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007) | 2007 | 41 | #34,652 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 4
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- 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 Ku mean, and where does it come from?
- From Hakka 古 (gǔ). Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names and Digital Pāḷi Dictionary and 2 other sources.
- How do you pronounce Ku?
- A machine transcription gives /kʰʉ/ (IPA) for Hindi.
- Is Ku a male or female name?
- Ku is recorded for both men and women. We don't publish a percentage split: a record's gender belongs to the person and is attached to every given name on that record, so names in cultures where a name string also carries a parent's or spouse's given name pick up large cross-gender counts.
- In which country does Ku have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 14 thousand people named Ku in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled ku.
- How common is the name Ku?
- In the United States, the national register counted 3,725 people named Ki in 2020, about 1 in 89 thousand residents.
- How common is Ku compared with other names?
- In India, Ku is the 334th most common given name of 3,760,348 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Ku?
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/kuThe 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, “Ku” — the 334th most common given name in India. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.