Meaning of Last Name

Meaning: after a region in Henan

Chén (w=Ch'en) is one of the most common East Asian family names. It ranks at the 2nd most popular surname in China and the most popular surname in Singapore and Taiwan. Chen is also the most common family name in Guangdong, Zhejiang, Fujian (spelt Chan, Chin or Tan in Singapore and Malaysia), Hong Kong (spelt Chan in Hong Kong and Macau). It is usually romanised as Chan in Cantonese, and sometimes as Chun. In Min (including dialects of Chaozhou (Teochow), Hainan, Fujian, and Taiwan), the name is pronounced Tan. In Hakka and Toisan, the name is spelled and pronounced as Chin. Some other Romanisations include Zen (from Wu), Ding and Chern. The Korean surname 진 (Jin) would be the Korean equivalent of the surname Chen. In Vietnam, this surname is written in Quốc Ngữ as Trần, and is the second most popular Vietnamese surname, accounting for 11% of the population, after the surname Nguyễn (38.4%). According to an unofficial count undertaken by the American company infoUSA, "Chan" is the 19th most common surname (and the third most common Chinese surname) found in Canadian telephone directories.