Wu

97,527 people in the United States were counted with the surname Wu in the 2020 census, making it the 318th most common in the country. That is about one person in 3,065.

By the numbers

People: 97,527
Rank: 318th
How common: 1 in 3,065
Per 100,000: 32.6

Where the name comes from

Origin Chinese

Romanization of the cmn pronunciation of Chinese ^吳 (Wú).

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

Who bears the name

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

Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 95.4%
White, not Hispanic 2.2%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 1.5%
Hispanic or Latino 0.6%
Black, not Hispanic 0.3%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.02%

Notable people called Wu

Wu Zetian (624–705)founding empress of Zhou dynasty (r. 690–705); de facto ruler of Tang dynasty from 665 to 690
Chien-Shiung Wu (1912–1997)Chinese-American physicist (1912–1997) (death at 85 years)
Wu Cheng'en (1504–1582)Chinese writer
Constance Wu (born 1982)American actress
Kris Wu (born 1990)Chinese-born Canadian rapper and convicted sex criminal
Wu Yi (born 1938)Vice Premier of China
Daniel Wu (born 1974)American actor
Wu Lei (born 1991)Chinese footballer

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

Surnames like Wu

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.