Poon
surname · Latin script
Meaning: Any of several East Indian trees of the genus Calophyllum, yielding a light, hard wood used for masts, spars, etc
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/puːn/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Poon is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Hong Kong it is the 86th most common surname.
- HKHong Kong≈1 in 321(inferred from the name graph)
- SGSingapore≈1 in 4.2K
- MYMalaysia≈1 in 6.1K
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.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- 3 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 347 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 321 (inferred from the name graph)
≈120,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Hong Kong, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
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)
Any of several East Indian trees of the genus Calophyllum, yielding a light, hard wood used for masts, spars, etc.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Where in the world(measured from records)
Poon 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 | — | ≈120,000 est. | ≈1 in 12K | — | Poon | 52 |
| HK Hong Kong | #86 | ≈23,000 est. | ≈1 in 321 | — | Poon | 126 |
| MY Malaysia | — | ≈5,300 est. | ≈1 in 6.1K | — | Poon | 65 |
| US United States | — | 4,564 | 1 in 73K | 4.6K | Poon | 347 |
| CA Canada | — | ≈2,700 est. | ≈1 in 14K | — | Poon | 186 |
| SG Singapore | #332 | ≈1,500 est. | ≈1 in 4.2K | — | Poon | 116 |
| GY Guyana | — | 62 | 1 in 12K | 62 | — | 2 |
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; Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025. 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)
Poon 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 Khmer, {- wn?, tojnn[U[uiHj) p. to greet in the traditional Khmer way (either by placing the hands, palms together and fingers up, in front of the chest or by bowing). nS
as a wordHeadley, Cambodian-English Dictionary, Volume I (ក-ភ)
In Khmer, kind of tree having acidic fruit. CmSfill
as a wordHeadley, Cambodian-English Dictionary, Volume I (ក-ភ)
In enm, alternative form of pown (“peacock”)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In sjm, tree, trunk of a tree; capital for investment; beginning, origin, source; reason or cause of something
as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0
In Esperanto, accusative singular of poo
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)
- Phan Huy Quatb. 1911VNnot in their usual namePrime minister of South Vietnam (1911-1979)
- Márta Pánb. 1923HUnot in their usual namesculptor from Hungary and France (1923-2008)
- Rebecca Panb. 1931CNnot in their usual nameChinese actress and singer
- Pan Yueb. 1960CNnot in their usual nameChinese politician
- Pan Jianweib. 1970CNnot in their usual nameChinese quantum physicist and university administrator
- Pan Yuemingb. 1974CNnot in their usual nameChinese actor
- Wilber Panb. 1980USnot in their usual nameTaiwanese-American singer, actor and entrepreneur
- Jennifer Panb. 1986CAnot in their usual nameCanadian convicted murderer
- Pan Cheng-tsungb. 1991TWnot in their usual nameTaiwanese golfer (1991-)
- Pan Zhanleb. 2004CNnot 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).
How to address them(machine-generated)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 26 sources across 16 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 4.6K | #7,308 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 4.6K | #7,080 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 4.1K | #7,570 |
| GY Guyana | Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025 | 2025 | 62 | #563 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
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
- How do you pronounce Poon?
- A machine transcription gives /puːn/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Poon mean, and where does it come from?
- Any of several East Indian trees of the genus Calophyllum, yielding a light, hard wood used for masts, spars, etc. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- In which country does Poon have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 118 thousand people named Poon in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled poon.
- How common is the name Poon?
- In the United States, the national register counted 4,564 people named Poon in 2010, about 1 in 73 thousand residents.
- How common is Poon compared with other names?
- In Hong Kong, Poon is the 86th most common surname of 8,142 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Poon?
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/poonThe 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, “Poon” — the 86th most common surname in Hong Kong. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.