Võ

surname · Latin script

Meaning: martial

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

/vɔ˨˩˦/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Võ is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Vietnam than in any other country, where it is the 12th most common surname.

rarermore common
  • VNVietnam≈1 in 147(inferred from the name graph)
  • AUAustralia≈1 in 6.1K
  • USUnited States1 in 9.2K

carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

Vietnam (inferred from the name graph)

≈670,000 people, est.

#949 (measured from records)

of 19M surnames

2 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
421 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 147 (inferred from the name graph)

Vietnam, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

VõLatin(measured from records)
ΒοGreek(measured from records)

One other spelling is counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Vo in VN Vietnam, US United States, AU Australia and 4 more.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

martial

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested across 14 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Võ counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.

Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.

Where Võ is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
VN Vietnam#12≈670,000 est.≈1 in 147100Vo220
US United States—36,2361 in 9.2K45KVo421
AO Angola#81≈17,000 est.≈1 in 2K—Vo4
ID Indonesia—≈5,600 est.≈1 in 47K—Vo31
GB United Kingdom—≈4,600 est.≈1 in 14K282Vo100
AU Australia#516≈4,200 est.≈1 in 6.1K1Vo178
NO Norway—1,4881 in 3.7K1.5KVo32

Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.

Registers cited: The page provides an analysis of the performance of Vietnamese surname lists in identifying Vietnamese individuals for r; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present); Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).

Other names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Võ is also recorded as 6 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • a separate surname27 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, Malaysia, Canada

    Also written Vo, Vô, Vö, Vợ, Vơ

  • a separate name12 spellings in the group

    Also written Vo, Vờ, Vô, Vỗ, Vở

  • Spanish surname30 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, El Salvador, Chile, Mexico

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Vo, Vó, V'O, V-O, Vô

  • French surname12 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, Canada, Belgium

    Also written Vo, Vô, V-O, Vö, Vỡ

  • Russian surname28 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Russia, Ukraine, United States, United Kingdom

    Languages: Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian

    Also written Во, Vo, Waugh, Vô, Vő

  • Korean surname6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, South Korea, Malaysia

    Also written Vo, Vô, Vỏ, Vợ, Vơ

32 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Võ is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In Vietnamese, Biến đọc trại của họ Vũ ở Nam Hà do kiêng húy chúa Nguyễn Phúc Khoát (Vũ Vương).

    as a nameTên Họ Người Việt Nam

  • In German, obsolete spelling of von

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

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.

Notable people with this name(measured from records)

500100015002000Wu Shihuo, b. 559Wu Zetian, b. 624Võ Nguyên Giáp, b. 1911Vo Chi Cong, b. 1912Vu Van Mau, b. 1914Vo Van Kiet, b. 1922Võ Văn Thưởng, b. 1970Võ Thị Ánh Xuân, b. 1970Danh Vō, b. 1975Wu Lei, b. 1991
  • Wu Shihuob. 559not in their usual namefather of Wu Zetian
  • Wu Zetianb. 624CNnot in their usual namefounding empress of Zhou dynasty (r. 690–705); de facto ruler of Tang dynasty from 665 to 690
  • Võ Nguyên Giápb. 1911VNVietnamese general and communist politician (1911–2013)
  • Vo Chi Congb. 1912VNPresident of Vietnam (1912-2011)
  • Vu Van Maub. 1914VNnot in their usual namePrime Minister of South Vietnam (1914-1998)
  • Vo Van Kietb. 1922VNprime minister of Vietnam (1922-2008)
  • Võ Văn Thưởngb. 1970VNPresident of Vietnam (2023–2024)
  • Võ Thị Ánh Xuânb. 1970VNVietnamese politician
  • Danh Vōb. 1975VNDanish contemporary artist of Vietnamese descent (born 1975)
  • Wu Leib. 1991CNnot in their usual nameChinese footballer

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).

How to address them(machine-generated)

FormalDear Colleague,
InformalHello,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 10 sources across 5 countries.

Reference works 3

  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Wikipedia surname tokens
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)

These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.

Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.

Frequently asked questions

What does the name Võ mean, and where does it come from?
martial Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
How do you pronounce Võ?
A machine transcription gives /vɔ˨˩˦/ (IPA) for Vietnamese.
In which country does Võ have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 672 thousand people named Võ in Vietnam, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled vo.
How common is the name Võ?
In the United States, the national register counted 36,236 people named Võ in 2010, about 1 in 9.2 thousand residents.
How common is Võ compared with other names?
In Vietnam, Võ is the 12th most common surname of 62,915 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Võ?

Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.

Please leave out anyone's personal details (see Privacy).

Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/v%C3%B5

The payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.

About this data

measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated

These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.

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, “Võ” — the 12th most common surname in Vietnam. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Võ parses inside a full name →