Shu

Shu is the 9,744th most common surname in the United States, shared by 3,177 people at the 2020 census. That is about one person in 94,100.

By the numbers

People: 3,177
Rank: 9,744th
How common: 1 in 94,100
Per 100,000: 1.1

Where the name comes from

From atonal romanization of the cmn pronunciation of various Chinese surnames, including those variously romanized as Xu or Hsu whose separate sound /ɕ/ is conflated with /ʃ/ by English speakers.

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

Who bears the name

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

Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 90.1%
White, not Hispanic 5.0%
Black, not Hispanic 2.1%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 2.0%
Hispanic or Latino 0.9%

1 category is not listed because nobody with this surname reported that background.

Notable people called Shu

Shu Qi (born 1976)Taiwanese actress
Wang Shu (born 1963)Chinese architect
Yuan Shu (155–199)Chinese general and warlord
Frank Shu (1943–2023)American astronomer
Lin Shu (1852–1924)Chinese writer
Pan Shu (250–252)Eastern Wu empress
Howard Shu (born 1990)US American badminton player

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

Surnames like Shu

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.