Song

surname · Latin script

Meaning, in English: A musical composition with lyrics for voice or voices, performed by singing

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

/sɒŋ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Song is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In South Korea it is the 16th most common surname.

rarermore common
  • CNChina≈1 in 720(inferred from the name graph)
  • SGSingapore≈1 in 2.2K
  • MYMalaysia≈1 in 3.2K

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 Song 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)

≈1,900,000 people, est.

#890 (measured from records)

of 19M surnames

2 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
455 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 553 (inferred from the name graph)

North Korea, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

SongLatin(measured from records)
송여Hangul(measured from records)

One other spelling is counted as the same name:

Locally spelled 송 in KR South Korea, MO Macao.

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)

A musical composition with lyrics for voice or voices, performed by singing.

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested across 11 languages in the etymology graph.

How Song is read(measured from records)

Song is one spelling over 3 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.

  • English46%

    A musical composition with lyrics for voice or voices, performed by singing.

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

    ngulé = wulé

    as a wordVocabulary of the Mende Language

  • Korean18%

    King of Paekche (523–554) killed in fighting after 553.

    as a nameKorea - A Historical and Cultural Dictionary

    Paekche king, reign AD 523–554.

    as a nameKorea - A Historical and Cultural Dictionary

  • Chinese14%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Song in Chinese.

The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Song 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 Song is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
CN China—≈1,900,000 est.≈1 in 720—Song115
KR South Korea#16683,521as 송1 in 76925K송244
KP North Korea#28≈46,000 est.≈1 in 553—Song41
US United States—25,1101 in 13K31KSong455
MY Malaysia#454≈10,000 est.≈1 in 3.2K—Song78
SG Singapore#297≈2,800 est.≈1 in 2.2K—Song129
MO Macao#24≈1,900 est.≈1 in 332—송9

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: KOSIS 2015 Census — surname population with hanja variants; KOSIS — 2015 census surnames; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020. 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)

Song is also recorded as 4 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Vietnamese surname59 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Vietnam, United States, Hong Kong, China

    Languages: Vietnamese, Khmer

    Also written Tong, Tống, Tổng, Tòng, Sống

  • a separate name8 spellings in the group

    Also written Sǭng, Sông, Sǒng, Sòng, Sóng

  • Hindi surname7 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, India, China, Malaysia

    Languages: Hindi, Urdu

    Also written Sŏng, Sông, Sống, Sóng

  • a separate surname29 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, China, United Kingdom, India

    Also written Sòng, Sống, Sông, Șőng, Šốñg

83 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)

Song 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.

  • — žr. Sanginas

    as a nameLietuvių pavardžių žodynas (Dictionary of Lithuanian Surnames)

  • In och, to lift up, raise; rise up high, rise sharply (of mountain)

    as a wordSchuessler, ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese (2007)

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)

1850190019502000Soong Ching-ling, b. 1893Soong May-ling, b. 1898Sung Jae-gi, b. 1967Song Kang-ho, b. 1967Rigobert Song, b. 1976Song Seung-heon, b. 1976Song Joong-ki, b. 1985Song Jae-lim, b. 1985Alexandre Song, b. 1987Brenda Song, b. 1988
  • Soong Ching-lingb. 1893CNnot in their usual nameformer Vice President of the People's Republic of China and third wife of Sun Yat-sen (1893–1981)
  • Soong May-lingb. 1898USnot in their usual nameChiang Kai-shek's wife, First Lady of the Republic of China (1898–2003)
  • Sung Jae-gib. 1967KRnot in their usual nameSouth Korean masculism activist (1967-2013)
  • Song Kang-hob. 1967KRSouth Korean actor
  • Rigobert Songb. 1976CMCameroonian football manager and former player (born 1976)
  • Song Seung-heonb. 1976KRSouth Korean actor
  • Song Joong-kib. 1985KRSouth Korean actor
  • Song Jae-limb. 1985KRSouth Korean actor and model (1985–2024)
  • Alexandre Songb. 1987CMCameroonian and French footballer
  • Brenda Songb. 1988USAmerican actress and model (born 1988)

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)

FormalDear Song,
InformalHello,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 65 sources across 33 countries.

Official registers attesting Song
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
KR South KoreaKOSIS — 2015 census surnames2015925K#13
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020202031K#1,105
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010201025K#1,415
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000200017K#1,962

Reference works 7

  • 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
  • Wikipedia given-name tokens
  • Wikipedia surname tokens
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
  • Lietuvių pavardžių žodynas (Dictionary of Lithuanian Surnames)

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 Song?
A machine transcription gives /sɒŋ/ (IPA) for English.
What does the name Song mean, and where does it come from?
A musical composition with lyrics for voice or voices, performed by singing. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
What are other forms of the name Song?
In the etymology graph, Sing is a form of the same name in other languages.
In which country does Song have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 1.9 million people named Song in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled song.
How common is the name Song?
In the United States, the national register counted 25,110 people named Song in 2010, about 1 in 13 thousand residents.
How common is Song compared with other names?
In South Korea, Song is the 16th most common surname of 14,133 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Song?

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

The 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, “Song” — the 16th most common surname in South Korea. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Song parses inside a full name →