Phu
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Sino-Vietnamese reading of 夫
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/fu˨˨/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Phu is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Vietnam than in any other country, where it is the 85th most common given name.
- VNVietnam≈1 in 720(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 87K
- KHCambodia≈1 in 13K
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.
- Vietnam (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 178 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 720 (inferred from the name graph)
≈140,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Vietnam, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Sino-Vietnamese reading of 夫
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 20 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Phu 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VN Vietnam | #85 | ≈140,000 est. | ≈1 in 720 | listed | Phu | 178 |
| US United States | — | 3,819 | 1 in 87K | 3.4K | Phu | 142 |
| AO Angola | — | ≈2,500 est. | ≈1 in 13K | — | Phu | 2 |
| KH Cambodia | — | ≈1,300 est. | ≈1 in 13K | — | Phu | 7 |
| ID Indonesia | — | ≈1,200 est. | ≈1 in 229K | — | Phu | 31 |
| CA Canada | — | ≈480 est. | ≈1 in 79K | 1 | Phu | 33 |
| AU Australia | — | ≈430 est. | ≈1 in 60K | 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: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; 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)
Phu is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Vietnamese, Han-Viet name element; from the naming poem for Thiệu Hóa quận vương, Gia Long’s 9th son.
as a nameTên Họ Người Việt Nam
In Vietnamese, Hán-Việt: phu, chồng; người trưởng thành.
as a nameTên Họ Người Việt Nam
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)
- Nguyễn Phúc Miên Phúb. 1817VN(1817-1885)
- Jiang Lifub. 1890CNnot in their usual nameChinese mathematician and educator
- Trần Phúb. 1904VNVietnamese communist leader (1904–1931)
- Lê Văn Phúb. 1983GHassociation football player
- Trương Huỳnh Phúb. 1988VNVietnamese association football player
- Ngô Viết Phúb. 1992VNVietnamese association football player (1992-)
- Yi-Fu CaiCNnot in their usual namecosmologist
- Yang Funot in their usual nameSong dynasty person CBDB = 36791
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 35 sources across 19 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 2.4K | #12,492 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 2.2K | #13,593 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 1.8K | #15,187 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 3
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- 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 Phu mean, and where does it come from?
- Sino-Vietnamese reading of 夫 Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Phu?
- A machine transcription gives /fu˨˨/ (IPA) for Vietnamese.
- Is Phu a male or female name?
- Phu is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- In which country does Phu have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 137 thousand people named Phu in Vietnam, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled phu.
- How common is the name Phu?
- In the United States, the national register counted 3,819 people named Phu in 2020, about 1 in 87 thousand residents.
- How common is Phu compared with other names?
- In Vietnam, Phu is the 85th most common given name of 73,918 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Phu?
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/phuThe 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, “Phu” — the 85th most common given name in Vietnam. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.