Chau

17,795 people in the United States were counted with the surname Chau in the 2020 census, making it the 1,977th most common in the country. That is about one person in 16,800.

By the numbers

People: 17,795
Rank: 1,977th
How common: 1 in 16,800
Per 100,000: 6.0

Where the name comes from

From yue 周 or Vietnamese Châu (from the same ultimate origin).

Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Who bears the name

How people with the surname Chau described their own race and Hispanic origin at the 2020 census:

Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 93.6%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 2.5%
Hispanic or Latino 1.8%
White, not Hispanic 1.7%
Black, not Hispanic 0.3%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.05%

Notable people called Chau

Ngô Bảo Châu (born 1972)Vietnamese math professor
Hong Chau (born 1979)American actress
François Chau (born 1959)Cambodian actor
Phan Bội Châu (1867–1940)19/20th-century Vietnamese nationalist and revolutionary
Osric Chau (born 1986)Canadian actor and martial artist
John Allen Chau (1991–2018)American missionary
Wakin Chau (born 1959)Taiwanese singer and actor
Chrissie Chau (born 1985)Hong Kong actress and model

People named Chau with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).

Surnames like Chau

Try it on yourself

Source: US Census Bureau, Frequently Occurring Surnames, 2020. The Census describes the file as the surnames borne by 100 or more people; rarer names are not published. The line is not quite exact, and 617 published names come in under it, the smallest at 92 people. Race and Hispanic origin are self-reported. Rates are worked out against the 298.9 million people the file's own figures are calculated on, which is fewer than the census counted in all: the difference is everyone whose surname was too rare to publish.