Ngo
surname · English · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Ngo is a surname, most frequently recorded in Vietnam, where it is the 14th most common surname. It appears chiefly in English and Vietnamese, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: Initialism of non-governmental organization.
- VNVietnam1 in 94◐
- CMCameroon1 in 263
- USUnited States1 in 4.6K
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈91K ●
- #341 ●
- Sources
- 358 ●
- 1 in 4.5K ◐
across 13 countries
of 21M surnames
639K records
Official registry-verified
Norway
Spellings & scripts●
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Ngô in VN Vietnam, Wu in CN China and N'Go in CI Côte d’Ivoire.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records; ○ marks a model's transliteration. Click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin●
Initialism of non-governmental organization.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 19 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world●
Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VN Vietnam | #14 | 3,422,958 | 287K rec. | — | 76 | Ngô | 209 |
| US United States | — | 71,721 | 253K rec. | 1 in 4.6K | 98K | Ngo | 358 |
| AU Australia | #459 | 17,296 | 16K rec. | — | 2 | Ngo | 169 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | 11,062 | 12K rec. | — | listed | Ngo | 93 |
| CA Canada | #578 | 10,641 | 11K rec. | — | — | Ngo | 131 |
| PH Philippines | — | 9,018 | 6.7K rec. | — | — | Ngo | 95 |
| ES Spain | — | 8,880△ | 570 rec. | 1 in 5.6K | 8.9K | Ngo | 26 |
| CM Cameroon | #1 | 6,545 | 7K rec. | — | — | Ngo | 43 |
| MY Malaysia | #660 | 4,734 | 4.5K rec. | — | — | Ngo | 57 |
| DE Germany | — | 3,631 | 3.5K rec. | — | 1 | Ngo | 118 |
| SV El Salvador | #554 | 2,445 | 2.7K rec. | — | — | Ngo | 3 |
| AR Argentina | — | 1,998△ | 618 rec. | 1 in 23K | 2K | Ngo | 17 |
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.
Languages●
- English1.6M71%
- Vietnamese521K23%
- French30K1%
- Spanish18K1%
- 16K1%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| English | 1,580,172 | 71% |
| Vietnamese | 521,458 | 23% |
| French | 29,922 | 1% |
| Spanish | 17,859 | 1% |
| 15,942 | 1% |
Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.
Other recorded senses●
Ngo is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
Leopard.
as a nameThe African book of names
unexplained.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In cdo, 1^ I Read ^ngu; coll. ngo、 ： five : sek ^ ngo》 fifteen ； IT* ng& the 5th day of the 5th ZXi raoon ； nik^ ngo^ the 25 th day of a month ； pai ' ngo^ Friday; ^《 ngo、 fifth brother ； 7igo^ V'eif chHo^ a bouse five posts (deep) ； ngo^ fihHmgtieu^ 5,000,000 of cash ； ng& tdi^ ^tung ^tong^ five coteraporary generations in a family.
as a wordAn Alphabetic Dictionary of the Chinese Language in the Foochow Dialect
In men, sound, voice, word, report, advice. I ngod wilia nhgi ma. Negiye nga wa ghoma hi wé a ngo. Ngo yéla la, one word, mouth = conspiracy, plot. I. ngdi ji ge a tié, He revealed to them the plot; bargain. Ti, wa ngo yéla ht, They enter
as a wordVocabulary of the Mende Language
In men, an elderly person; any grown-up person whose name his younger brothers or sisters are
as a wordVocabulary of the Mende Language
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Over time●
Show as table
| Year | records |
|---|---|
| 2018 | 561 |
| 2019 | 574 |
| 2020 | 576 |
| 2021 | 578 |
| 2022 | 592 |
| 2023 | 593 |
| 2024 | 601 |
| 2025 | 603 |
NO SSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891) — 8 years between 2018–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.
Notable people with this name●
- Plaek Phibunsongkhramb. 1897THnot in their usual namePrime Minister of Thailand, 1938–44 and 1948–57 (1897–1964)
- Momofuku Andob. 1910JPnot in their usual nameTaiwanese-Japanese businessman, created instant noodle (ramyeon), Nissin Chikin Ramen
- Chien-Shiung Wub. 1912USnot in their usual nameChinese-American physicist (1912–1997) (death at 85 years)
- Wu Yib. 1938CNnot in their usual nameVice Premier of China
- Goh Chok Tongb. 1941SGnot in their usual name2nd Prime Minister of Singapore from 1990 to 2004
- John Woob. 1946CNnot in their usual nameHong Kong film director, screenwriter and film producer
- John Loneb. 1952USnot in their usual nameAmerican actor
- Ping Wub. 1956USnot in their usual nameAmerican actor
- Daniel Wub. 1974USnot in their usual nameAmerican actor
- Kris Wub. 1990CNnot in their usual nameChinese-born Canadian rapper and convicted sex criminal (1990–)
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
Evidence●
Attested in 45 sources across 24 countries.
Reference works 7
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 81 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Ngo?
- We estimate roughly 91 thousand people bear Ngo (counting its spellings and scripts) across 13 countries in our records.
- In which country does Ngo have the most bearers?
- Ngo is most frequently recorded in Vietnam, where it is most often spelled ngô.
- How common is Ngo compared with other names?
- In Vietnam, Ngo is the 14th most common surname of 58,673 surnames recorded there.
- What does the name Ngo mean?
- Recorded meaning: Initialism of non-governmental organization.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/ngoThe same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use. Bulk access and licensing.
About this data
Data snapshot . Figures are rebuilt periodically and will change.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Ngo” — the 14th most common surname in Vietnam. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.