Hu (胡)
A Taiwanese surname.
胡 Hu
- Zhuyin
- ㄏㄨˊ
- Pinyin
- hú
- Wade-Giles
- Hu
- Taiwanese Hokkien (Tâi-lô)
- Ôo Ôo is the colloquial (白讀) reading, while hôo is the character's literary (文讀) reading.
- Hakka (Sixian)
- fu¹¹
- Rank in Taiwan
- 39th most common surname, roughly 0.54% of the population (2023 Ministry of the Interior figures)
What the character means
Historically, a general name for the peoples north and west of the Central Plains; as an adverb it means 'recklessly' (as in 胡說 'to talk nonsense').
Where the surname comes from
Tradition traces it to Gui Man (媯滿), Duke Hu of Chen (陳胡公), some of whose descendants took his posthumous title Hu as their surname; other lines descend from the people of the small states named Hu in present-day Anhui and Henan. Hall name (堂號): 安定堂.
Saying it 我姓胡 — wǒ xìng hú (ㄨㄛˇ ㄒㄧㄥˋ ㄏㄨˊ), "my family name is 胡"
Sources: rank and share, 內政部 全國姓名統計分析 (Ministry of the Interior, National Name Statistics), data as of 2023-06-30. Taiwanese Hokkien readings, 教育部臺灣台語常用詞辭典 (MOE Dictionary of Frequently-Used Taiwanese Taigi), 百家姓 appendix. Hakka, 教育部臺灣客語辭典 (MOE Dictionary of Taiwan Hakka), 百家姓表, Sixian (四縣腔).