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Chinese surname

Surname Chan

陳 · 曾

Chan is the Cantonese spelling of the Chinese surname 陳, and also the Hokkien spelling of the surname 曾.

Characters for the surname Chan

The spelling Chan is common in Cantonese and Hokkien romanization.

  • 陳

    surname; to exhibit

    Cantonese can4 / Mandarin chén

    attested

  • 陈

    surname; to exhibit (simplified form)

    Cantonese can4 / Mandarin chén (simplified form of 陳)

    attested

  • 曾

    surname; great- (generation prefix)

    Hokkien chan / Mandarin zēng

    attested

陳 all spellings of chén曾 all spellings of céng

Possible characters for Chan

Chan 陳 chén · Cantonese 曾 céng · Hokkien
The spelling Chan can stand for 2 characters. The spelling alone does not show which one a family uses.
CharacterMandarin reading · romanization of the spelling
陳chén · Cantonese
曾céng · Hokkien

Other spellings of the same character

  • Tan 陳Hokkien, Teochew, Mandarin (pinyin)
  • Chen 陳Mandarin (pinyin)
  • Chin 陳Hakka, Cantonese
  • Chun 陳Cantonese
  • Ding 陳Foochow, Mandarin (pinyin)
  • Tang 陳Teochew, Cantonese, Mandarin (pinyin)
  • Ting 陳Foochow, Cantonese
  • Chang 曾Hakka, Teochew, Cantonese

About the surname Chan

Chan is mainly the Cantonese spelling of the surname 陳 (simplified 陈), read can4. In Hokkien and Teochew 陳 is written Tan, in Hakka Chin and in Mandarin Chen. Chan is also used for the surname 曾, whose Hokkien surname reading is chan; the meaning depends on which character a family uses. According to JPN, the surname peaked in the 1940s with 1,281 baby girls.

Chan in official JPN data

1940s
Boy: 1,232 · 7.2% Girl: 1,281 · 6.8%
1950s
Boy: 560 · 6.2%
1960s
not in the top 10
1970s
not in the top 10
1980s
not in the top 10
1990s
not in the top 10
2000s
not in the top 10
2010s
not in the top 10
People registered with Chan as their first name (as published by JPN), by decade of birth, for the decades in which it was in the top 10 for its sex in the JPN Chinese table. In these records the name JPN publishes is often the surname. Bar length shows the name’s share of that decade’s top-10 total for the sex (the percentage after the count), because those totals differ between decades. Source: JPN via data.gov.my (CC BY 4.0)

Sources

  1. Wiktionary: 陳 · en.wiktionary.org · meaning
  2. MDBG: 陳 · mdbg.net · meaning
  3. MDBG: 陈 · mdbg.net · meaning
  4. Wiktionary: 曾 · en.wiktionary.org · meaning
  5. MDBG: 曾 · mdbg.net · meaning

Names are shared across communities. The categories on this site are for browsing only: they describe a name and its spelling, not anyone’s ethnicity, religion or background.

Entry ID: mn00084 · Updated · Report a mistake