Phó

surname · Latin script

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

Phó is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. Recorded meaning: Sino-Vietnamese word from 傅.

rarermore common
  • USUnited States1 in 250K(measured from records)
  • DKDenmark1 in 367K
  • NONorway1 in 456K

carrying the name, as counted by each country's national register. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

United States (measured from records)

1,333 people, 2010

Sources
50 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 250K (inferred from the name graph)

United States

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

2 other spellings are counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Pho in US United States.

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)

Sino-Vietnamese word from 傅.

Sources 1

Attested across 21 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Phó 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 Phó is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States1,3331 in 250K1.5KPho50
AR Argentina271 in 1.7M27——
NL Netherlands241 in 720K24—3
DK Denmark161 in 367K16——
CH Switzerland131 in 646K13—1
NO Norway121 in 456K12—1

1,333 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. 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; RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Phó is also recorded as 6 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Vietnamese surname5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Vietnam, United States, United Kingdom, Canada

    Languages: Vietnamese, Khmer

    Also written Pho, Phố, Phô

  • English surname21 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Australia, United Kingdom, Canada

    Languages: English, German

    Also written Pho, Phoe, Phố, Phö, Phở

  • French surname10 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, Canada

    Also written Pho, Phô, Phờ, Phố, Phổ

  • Spanish surname19 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Argentina, El Salvador, Chile

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Pho, Phố, Phở, Phô, Phớ

  • Swahili surname5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States

    Also written Pho, Phố

  • a separate name8 spellings in the group

    Also written Phò, Phở, Phố, Pho, Phờ

3 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)

Phó 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 Lao, onom. grinding noise. Tuscos phd phéy bor. 1. tree with edible fruit, Diospyros filipendula P. (Savannakhet) (Vidal). 2. jute plant, Corchorus capsularis L. (Pakse) (Vidal)

    as a wordLao-English Dictionary

  • In ko-pro, 1 many, several, quantity 2 to pile up

    as a wordStarLing Tower of Babel etymological databases (Starostin et al.)

  • In ko-pro, 1 много, несколько, количество 2 нагромождать

    as a wordStarLing Tower of Babel etymological databases (Starostin et al.)

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)

190019502000Peng Zhen, b. 1902Fu Lei, b. 1908Ezra Vogel, b. 1930Fu Cong, b. 1934John Fugh, b. 1934Ping Fu, b. 1958Marco Fu, b. 1978Theresa Fu, b. 1984Fu Haifeng, b. 1984Fu Yuanhui, b. 1996
  • Peng Zhenb. 1902CNnot in their usual nameChinese politician (1902-1997)
  • Fu Leib. 1908CNnot in their usual nameChinese writer (1908-1966)
  • Ezra Vogelb. 1930USnot in their usual nameAmerican academic, sinologist (1930–2020)
  • Fu Congb. 1934GBnot in their usual nameChinese-British pianist (1934-2020)
  • John Fughb. 1934USnot in their usual nameMajor general, advocate (1934–2010)
  • Ping Fub. 1958USnot in their usual nameChinese computer scientist and entrepreneur
  • Marco Fub. 1978CNnot in their usual nameprofessional snooker player from Hong Kong
  • Theresa Fub. 1984CNnot in their usual nameHong Kong singer and actress (born 1984)
  • Fu Haifengb. 1984CNnot in their usual nameChinese badminton player
  • Fu Yuanhuib. 1996CNnot in their usual nameChinese swimmer

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).

Evidence(measured from records)

No register attests this spelling yet

None of the official registers or reference works in our corpus lists Phó under this spelling. The statistics on this page rest on person records, and the related names are inferred from the name graph.

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

Frequently asked questions

What does the name Phó mean, and where does it come from?
Sino-Vietnamese word from 傅. Recorded by Wiktionary.
In which country does Phó have the most bearers?
In the United States, the national register counted about 1.3 thousand people named Phó, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled pho.
Where is Phó most common?
Phó is densest in the United States, where the national register counts about 1 in 250 thousand people carrying it.
How common is the name Phó?
In the United States, the national register counted 1,333 people named Phó in 2010, about 1 in 250 thousand residents.

What do you want to know about Phó?

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

Please leave out anyone's personal details (see Privacy).

Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/ph%C3%B3

The same 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), and bulk access is licensed separately.

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, “Phó”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Phó parses inside a full name →