Wat
surname · Latin script
Meaning: from OHG wadi 'handgeld, pledge'; also from OHG watan 'to wade'
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/wæt/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Wat is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Hong Kong than in any other country.
- HKHong Kong≈1 in 8.5K(inferred from the name graph)
- MYMalaysia≈1 in 82K
- NONorway1 in 249K
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.
- Hong Kong (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 34 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 8.5K (inferred from the name graph)
≈850 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Hong Kong, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
- OHGwadi(measured from records)
- OHGwatan(measured from records)
from OHG wadi 'handgeld, pledge'; also from OHG watan 'to wade'
Sources 1
- Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
Attested across 27 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Wat 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.
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; SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population). 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)
Wat 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.
The usual medieval short form of ) Walter, now occasionally revived.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In English, A Buddhist temple in Southeast Asia, especially those in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In German, 1. zu got. wadi "Handgeld, Pfand", nhd. Wette (Grundbedeutung "Bindung"; vgl. BAND). 2. zu ahd. watan, nhd. waten (lat. vadere) W a d i r i c h : Watte-, Wette | rich (x BAD, Be- dericus) Kf. W a d o , W e t l i : Wad|l, (l)er, (vgl. Wa- del); Watling; Watt | er (x obd. watt "Lache, Furt"), (e)ler, jes; Wä- der, Wettengel. Wettich (wät): "Kleidung". Wad- menger, Wat(t)mann
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
In cdo, to cry for justice in yamens HAF s x evening, sunset, dusk. AF a late evening meal
as a wordDictionary of the Foochow Dialect
English: the usual medieval short form of WALTER , based on the normal vernacular pronunciation, Water , with a short ‘a’.
as a word
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)
- Qu Yuanb. 343CNnot in their usual nameChinese poet and politician (c.340–278 BC)
- Qu Dingb. 1023CNnot in their usual nameChinese painter
- Qu Dajunb. 1630CNnot in their usual nameQing dynasty scholar, 1630-1696
- Qu Yingguangb. 1883TWnot in their usual nameChinese revolutionary (1883-1973)
- Aleksander Watb. 1900PLPolish poet (1900–1967)
- Teresa Watb. 1949CACanadian politician
- Methodius Qu Ailinb. 1961CNnot in their usual nameChinese Roman Catholic Bishop
- Qu Dongyub. 1963CNnot in their usual nameChinese politician
- Qu Jingjingb. 1990CNnot in their usual nameChinese actress
- Qu Chuxiaob. 1994CNnot in their usual nameChinese 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)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 23 sources across 13 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 366 | #59,630 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 283 | #69,392 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 276 | #66,878 |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 22 | #40,598 |
| US United States | wru 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 Wat mean, and where does it come from?
- from OHG wadi 'handgeld, pledge'; also from OHG watan 'to wade' Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
- How do you pronounce Wat?
- A machine transcription gives /wæt/ (IPA) for English.
- What are other forms of the name Wat?
- In the etymology graph, Gauthier, Gautier and Walther are forms of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Wat have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 850 people named Wat in Hong Kong, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled wat.
- How common is the name Wat?
- In the United States, the national register counted 283 people named Wat in 2010, about 1 in 1.2 million residents.
What do you want to know about Wat?
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/watThe 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, “Wat”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.