Toh (surname) explained

Toh
Language:	Chinese, Korean, others
Region:	Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, others

Toh is a surname in various cultures.

Origins

Toh may be:

• A spelling of the Hokkien pronunciation of the Chinese surname spelled in Mandarin Pinyin as Dù
• A spelling of the Hokkien pronunciation of the Chinese surname spelled in Mandarin Pinyin as Zhuó
• An alternative spelling of the Korean surname spelled in the Revised Romanisation of Korean as Do .

Statistics

Toh was the 17th-most common surname among ethnic Chinese in Singapore as of 1997 (ranked by English spelling, rather than by Chinese characters). Roughly 25,300 people, or 1.0% of the Chinese Singaporean population at the time, bore the surname Toh.^[1]

The 2010 United States Census found 445 people with the surname Toh, making it the 47,614th-most-common name in the country, up from 279 (66,274th-most-common) in the 2000 Census. In both censuses, slightly more than three-quarters of the bearers of the surname identified as Asian American, and between 10% and 15% as African American.^[2]

People

People with the surname Toh include:

Chinese surname 卓

• Toh Ah Boon (Chinese: 卓亞文; 1860–1932), Singaporean landlord
• Toh Kian Chui (Chinese: 卓键水; 1927–2000), Singaporean construction industry businessman
• Patsy Toh (Chinese: 卓一龍; born 1940), Chinese pianist based in the United Kingdom
• Toh Guo'An (Chinese: 卓国安; born 1982), Singaporean footballer
• Toh Hong Huat (Chinese: 卓鸿发; born 1974; disappeared in 1986), Singaporean student who went missing at age 12

Chinese surname 杜

• Toh Chin Chye (Chinese: 杜进才; 1921–2012), Singaporean politician
• Toh Aik Choon (Chinese: 杜亿春; 1927–1990), Singaporean shipbuilding industry businessman
• Sylvia Toh (Chinese: 杜白秋; born 1946/1947), Singaporean newspaper columnist
• Toh Wei Soong (Chinese: 杜维崧; born 1998), Singaporean swimmer
• Toh Ee Wei (Chinese: 杜依蔚; born 2000), Malaysian badminton player

Other or unknown

People with another surname spelled Toh, or whose surnames as written in Chinese characters are not available:

• Somdej Toh (1788–1872), Thai Buddhist monk
• Boniface Hie Toh (born 1936), Ivorian boxer
• Kerstin Lindblad-Toh (born 1970), Swedish geneticist
• Terry Toh (born 1974), Singaporean chess master
• Toh Hsien Min (born 1975), Singaporean poet
• Peter Toh (born 1981), American musician
• Daryl Toh (born 1986), Malaysian comic book artist
• Joanna Toh (born 1996), Singaporean netball player
• Toh Kai Wei (born 1996), Singaporean netball player
• Nicholle Toh (born 2001), Singaporean swimmer
• Chai Keong Toh, Singaporean computer scientist
• Kim-Chuan Toh, Singaporean mathematician

Notes and References

1. News: Popular Chinese Surnames in Singapore. Statistics Singapore Newsletter. 20. 2. October 1997. 8 January 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20080223075738/http://www.singstat.gov.sg/pubn/papers/people/chinesesurnames.html. 23 February 2008.
2. Web site: How common is your last name?. Newsday. 5 September 2018.