Szeto

surname · Latin script

Meaning: A surname from Cantonese

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

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

Szeto is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.

rarermore common
  • HKHong Kong≈1 in 1.6K(inferred from the name graph)
  • CACanada≈1 in 33K
  • USUnited States1 in 128K

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)

≈23,000 people, est.

2 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
262 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 1.6K (inferred from the name graph)

Hong Kong, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

SzetoLatin(measured from records)
СитоCyrillic(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)

A surname from Cantonese.

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Where in the world(measured from records)

Szeto 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 Szeto is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
CN China—≈23,000 est.≈1 in 60K—Szeto23
HK Hong Kong#149≈4,500 est.≈1 in 1.6K—Szeto64
US United States—2,5991 in 128K2.7KSzeto262
CA Canada—≈1,100 est.≈1 in 33K—Szeto130
GB United Kingdom—≈330 est.≈1 in 200K162Szeto79
SG Singapore—≈87 est.≈1 in 71K—Szeto35
JM Jamaica—≈40 est.≈1 in 71K—Szeto1

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; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register). 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)

Szeto is also recorded as 2 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Hindi surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Hong Kong, Canada, United Kingdom

    Languages: Hindi, Urdu

    Also written Sze-To

  • English surname25 spellings in the group

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

    Languages: English, Portuguese, Spanish

    Also written Seto, Se-To, Сэто, Сыту, Setó

30 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.

Notable people with this name(measured from records)

1850190019502000Situ Meitang, b. 1868Situ Qiao, b. 1902Situ Huimin, b. 1910Sha Fei, b. 1912Szeto Wah, b. 1931Antony Szeto, b. 1964Szeto Kam-Yuen, b. 1964Andy Seto, b. 1969Szeto Man Chun, b. 1975Hayden Szeto, b. 1985
  • Situ Meitangb. 1868CNnot in their usual namepolitician
  • Situ Qiaob. 1902CNnot in their usual nameChinese oil painter and graphic artist
  • Situ Huiminb. 1910CNnot in their usual nameChinese film director, screenwriter and actor (1910-1987)
  • Sha Feib. 1912CNnot in their usual nameChinese photojournalist
  • Szeto Wahb. 1931CNHong Kong politician and teacher (1931-2011)
  • Antony Szetob. 1964AUAustralian film director
  • Szeto Kam-Yuenb. 1964CNHong Kong screenwriter (1964–2012)
  • Andy Setob. 1969CNnot in their usual nameChinese comics artist
  • Szeto Man Chunb. 1975CNHong Kong footballer
  • Hayden Szetob. 1985CACanadian actor

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 Szeto,
InformalHello,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 13 sources across 7 countries.

Official registers attesting Szeto
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 202020202.7K#11,309
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 201020102.6K#12,012
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 200020002.4K#11,827
GB United KingdomSurnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register)2002162#24,383
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

Reference works 3

  • 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 Szeto mean, and where does it come from?
A surname from Cantonese. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
In which country does Szeto have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 23 thousand people named Szeto in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled szeto.
How do you pronounce Szeto?
A machine transcription gives /sitoʊ/ (IPA) for English.
How common is the name Szeto?
In the United States, the national register counted 2,599 people named Szeto in 2010, about 1 in 128 thousand residents.
How common is Szeto compared with other names?
In Hong Kong, Szeto is the 149th most common surname of 8,142 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Szeto?

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

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, “Szeto” — the 149th most common surname in Hong Kong. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Szeto parses inside a full name →