Pon (surname) explained

Pon
Language:	Chinese, Tamil, others

Pon is a surname in various cultures

Origins

Pon may be:

• An English surname, of unexplained origin^[1]
• An alternative romanisation of the Chinese surname spelled in Mandarin Pinyin as Pān (Chinese: 潘), which originated as a toponymic surname
• An alternative romanisation of the Chinese surname spelled in Mandarin Pinyin as Pán (Chinese: 盤/盘), which some say originated from Pangu.
• A Tamil name (Tamil: பொன்), meaning "gold"; Tamils and other peoples of South India traditionally use patronymics rather than surnames^{[2] [3]}

Statistics

In the Netherlands, there were 62 people with the surname Pon and 170 people with the surname Du Pon as of 2007.^{[4] [5]} (See tussenvoegsel.)

The 2010 United States Census found 1,419 people with the surname Pon, making it the 19,145th-most-common name in the country, up from 1,298 (19,313rd-most-common) in the 2000 Census. In both censuses, slightly fewer than three-quarters of the bearers of the surname identified as Asian, and between 10% and 15% as White.^[6]

People

People with the surname Pon include:

• Ben Pon Sr. (1904–1968), Dutch automotive businessman
• Maurice Pon (1921–2019), French lyricist
• Ben Pon (1936–2019), Dutch vintner, son of Ben Pon Sr.
• Jeff Tien Han Pon (born 1970), American government official
• Josephine Pon (born 1970s), Canadian politician

People with the surname Du Pon include:

• André du Pon (1924–2006), Dutch sailor
• Dorothea du Pon (born 1943), Dutch diver

People with the patronymic Pon (either in full, or as an abbreviation) include:

• Pon Arunachalam (born 1946), Indian writer
• Pon Selvarasa (born 1946), Sri Lankan politician, Member of Parliament
• Pon Sivakumaran (1950–1974), Sri Lankan Tamil militant
• Pon Radhakrishnan (born 1952), Indian politician, member of the Lok Sabha
• Pon Sivapalan (1952–1998), Sri Lankan politician, mayor of Jaffna
• Pon. Muthuramalingam, Indian politician, member of the Legislative Assembly of Tamil Nadu
• Pon Navarasu (died 1996), Indian student murdered in a ragging incident
• Pon. Vijayaraghavan, Indian politician, member of the Legislative Assembly of Tamil Nadu
• Pon Kumaran, Indian screenwriter and director
• Pon. Raja, Indian politician, member of the Legislative Assembly of Tamil Nadu

Notes and References

1. Book: A Dictionary of American Family Names. Patrick. Hanks. Oxford University Press. 2003. 115. 0195081374. 3.
2. Book: The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland. Patrick. Hanks. Richard. Coates. Peter. McClure. Oxford University Press. 2016. 9780192527479. xlvi, 2139.
3. Book: https://dsalsrv04.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/app/tamil-lex_query.py?qs=%E0%AE%AA%E0%AF%8A%E0%AE%A9%E0%AF%8D+&searchhws=yes. பொன். Tamil Lexicon. University of Madras. 1924. University of Chicago Digital Dictionaries of South Asia. 8 September 2018.
4. Web site: Pon, du. Nederlandse Familienamenbank. Centrum voor familiegeschiedenis. 8 September 2018.
5. Web site: Pon. Nederlandse Familienamenbank. Centrum voor familiegeschiedenis. 8 September 2018.
6. Web site: How common is your last name?. Newsday. 5 September 2018.