Toh (surname)
Language(s) | Chinese, Korean, others |
---|---|
Origin | |
Region of origin | Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, others |
Other names | |
Variant form(s) |
Toh is a surname in various cultures.
Origins
Toh may be:
- A spelling of the Cantonese pronunciation (Jyutping: Dou6; IPA: [tòu]) of the Chinese surname spelled in Mandarin Pinyin as Dù (Chinese: 杜)[1]
- A spelling of the Hokkien pronunciation (Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Toh; IPA: /toʔ³²/) of the Chinese surname spelled in Mandarin Pinyin as Zhuó (Chinese: 卓)[1]
- An alternative spelling of the Korean surname spelled in the Revised Romanisation of Korean as Do (Korean: 도; Hanja: 杜, 陶, or 道; MR: To; IPA: [doː])
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.[2]
According to the 2000 South Korean census, there were 54,779 people in 16,952 households with the surname spelled Do in Revised Romanization.[3] This surname is only infrequently spelled as Toh in South Korea: in a study based on a sample of applications for South Korean passports in 2007, only 1.1% of applicants chose to spell it as Toh in the Latin alphabet, against 86.9% who chose to spell it as Do, and 9.7% as Doh.[4]
According to statistics cited by Patrick Hanks, there were 154 people on the island of Great Britain and seven on the island of Ireland with the surname Toh as of 2011.[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.[5]
People
People with the surname Toh include:
Chinese surname 卓
- Toh Ah Boon (卓亞文; 1860–1932), Singaporean landlord
- Toh Kian Chui (卓键水; 1927–2000), Singaporean construction industry businessman
- Patsy Toh (卓一龍; born 1940), Chinese pianist based in the United Kingdom
- Toh Guo'An (卓国安; born 1982), Singaporean footballer
Chinese surname 杜
- Toh Chin Chye (杜进才; 1921–2012), Singaporean politician
- Toh Aik Choon (杜亿春; 1927–1990), Singaporean shipbuilding industry businessman
- Sylvia Toh (杜白秋; born 1946/1947), Singaporean newspaper columnist
- Toh Wei Soong (杜维崧; born 1998), Singaporean swimmer
- Toh Ee Wei (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
- 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
- Chai Keong Toh, Singaporean computer scientist
References
- Hanks, Patrick; Coates, Richard; McClure, Peter, eds. (2016). The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland. Oxford University Press. p. 2684. ISBN 9780192527479.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
- "Popular Chinese Surnames in Singapore". Statistics Singapore Newsletter. 20 (2). October 1997. Archived from the original on 23 February 2008. Retrieved 8 January 2018.
- "행정구역(구시군)/성씨·본관별 가구 및 인구" [Family names by administrative region (district, city, county): separated by bon-gwan, households and individuals]. Korean Statistical Information Service. Retrieved 4 September 2018.
- 성씨 로마자 표기 방안: 마련을 위한 토론회 [Plan for romanisation of surnames: a preparatory discussion]. National Institute of the Korean Language. 25 June 2009. p. 58. Retrieved 4 September 2018.
- "How common is your last name?". Newsday. Retrieved 5 September 2018.