Siew
given name · Latin script
Meaning: A surname of Chinese origin
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/siəw/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Siew is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Malaysia than in any other country, where it is the 29th most common given name.
- MYMalaysia≈1 in 287(inferred from the name graph)
- SGSingapore≈1 in 1.2K
- IDIndonesia≈1 in 6.4K
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.
- Malaysia (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 170 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 287 (inferred from the name graph)
≈110,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Malaysia, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
A surname of Chinese origin.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Where in the world(measured from records)
Siew 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MY Malaysia | #29 | ≈110,000 est. | ≈1 in 287 | — | Siew | 145 |
| ID Indonesia | — | ≈41,000 est. | ≈1 in 6.4K | — | Siew | 31 |
| CN China | — | ≈6,100 est. | ≈1 in 228K | — | Siew | 16 |
| SG Singapore | #119 | ≈5,400 est. | ≈1 in 1.2K | — | Siew | 126 |
| AU Australia | — | ≈1,300 est. | ≈1 in 19K | 1 | — | 1 |
| US United States | — | 536 | 1 in 621K | 463 | Siew | 170 |
| HK Hong Kong | — | ≈220 est. | ≈1 in 33K | — | Siew | 26 |
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; 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)
Siew 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 Polish, sowing
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In kha, to pay
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In wuu, Before (hand)
as a wordA Vocabulary of the Shanghai Dialect
In wuu, Instructor
as a wordA Vocabulary of the Shanghai Dialect
In wuu, Feel
as a wordAn English-Chinese Vocabulary of the Shanghai Dialect
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)
- Xiao Zhangmaob. 458not in their usual nameLiu Song Dynasty crown prince
- Liang Wudib. 464CNnot in their usual nameFounding Liang emperor from 502 to 549
- Yum-Tong Siub. 1943USnot in their usual nameChinese mathematician
- Anna Suib. 1964USnot in their usual nameAmerican fashion designer (born 1964)
- Hsiao Bi-khimb. 1971TWnot in their usual nameVice President of Taiwan since 2024
- Edwin Siub. 1977CNnot in their usual nameHong Kong actor and singer
- Elva Hsiaob. 1979TWnot in their usual nameTaiwanese singer (born 1979)
- Jona Xiaob. 1989CNnot in their usual nameChinese actress
- Xiao Jiaruixuanb. 2002CNnot in their usual nameChinese sport shooter
- Rita HsiaoUSnot in their usual nameAmerican screenwriter
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)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 24 sources across 14 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 362 | #60,172 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 325 | #61,745 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 262 | #69,854 |
| 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
- What does the name Siew mean, and where does it come from?
- A surname of Chinese origin. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Siew?
- A machine transcription gives /siəw/ (IPA) for Malay.
- Is Siew a male or female name?
- Siew is a female 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 Siew have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 114 thousand people named Siew in Malaysia, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled siew.
- How common is the name Siew?
- In the United States, the national register counted 536 people named Siew in 2020, about 1 in 621 thousand residents.
- How common is Siew compared with other names?
- In Malaysia, Siew is the 29th most common given name of 388,685 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Siew?
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/siewThe 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, “Siew” — the 29th most common given name in Malaysia. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.