Tou (surname) explained
Tou is a surname in various cultures.
Origins
Tou may be:
- An English surname, recorded in the Domesday Book as the name of a landholder[1]
- The Cantonese Jyutping romanisation of the Chinese surname spelled in Mandarin Pinyin as Táo (Chinese: 陶)
- The Wade-Giles romanisation of various Chinese surnames spelled in Pinyin as Dou (Chinese: 斗, 竇; IPA: pronounced as //toʊ̯//)[2]
- An alternative spelling of the Chinese surname spelled in Pinyin as Tuǒ (Chinese: 庹)
- A Cambodian surname (; IPA: pronounced as //tuː//), spelled in both Geographic Department romanisation and UNGEGN romanisation as Tu
Statistics
As of 2017, 2 people in Denmark and 48 people in Norway bore the surname Tou.[3] [4]
The 2010 United States Census found 312 people with the surname Tou, making it the 63,873rd-most-common name in the country, up from 251 (72,237th-most-common) in the 2000 Census. In both censuses, slightly more than three-quarters of the bearers of the surname identified as Asian, and between 10% and 15% as White.[5]
People
People with the surname Tou include:
- Tou Samouth (Central Khmer: ទូ សាមុត; –1962), Cambodian communist politician
- Holger Tou (1919–1947), Norwegian police official and collaborator with Nazi Germany
- Tou Chung-hua (Chinese: links=no|p=Tuǒ Zōnghuá|t=庹宗華; born 1962), Taiwanese actor
- Drissa Tou (born 1973), Burkinabe boxer
Notes and References
- Book: Barber, Henry. British family names; their origin and meaning, with lists of Scandinavian, Frisian, Anglo-Saxon and Norman names. London. E. Stock. 1894. Internet Archive.
- Book: Chao, Sheau-yueh J.. Genealogical Research on Chinese Surnames. Genealogical Publishing Company. 2000. 156. 9780806349466 .
- Web site: Names. Statistics Norway. 24 January 2017. 1 January 2018.
- Web site: How many Danes have the name .... Statistics Denmark. 2017. 3 January 2018.
- Web site: How common is your last name?. Newsday. 5 September 2018.