Chew (surname)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Language | Chinese (Cantonese, Southern Min, Mandarin), Korean |
|---|---|
| Other names | |
| Variant forms | |
Chew is a Chinese, English or Korean surname.
As an English surname, Chew has three separate origins:
- A toponymic surname referring to a place in Billington, Lancashire. It was originally spelled Cho, from Middle English cho, which is possibly a descendant of Old English cēo meaning "fish gill".[1][2]
- A toponymic surname referring to Chew Magna or Chew Stoke in Somerset.[3]
- A nickname from Old English cio, which refers to smaller chattering species of crow, in particular the red-billed chough.[4]
As a Chinese surname, Chew is a spelling of the pronunciation in different varieties of Chinese of a number of distinct surnames including the below ones, listed by their pronunciation in Mandarin Chinese:[5]
- Zhōu (Chinese: 周), spelled Chew based on its pronunciation in the Teochew dialect of Southern Min (Peng'im: ziu¹; IPA: /ʦiu³/).[6]
- Zhào (traditional Chinese: 趙; simplified Chinese: 赵), spelled Chew based on its pronunciation in Cantonese (Jyutping: ziu6; Cantonese Yale: jiuh; IPA: /t͡siːu̯²²/)[7]
- Qiū (Chinese: 丘, 秋, 邱) or Qiú (Chinese: 裘, 仇), from a variant of the Mandarin Wade–Giles spelling Ch'iu[8]
As a Korean surname, Chew might be an alternative spelling of the surnames spelled Ju (Korean: 주; Hanja: 朱, 周) or Chu (Korean: 추; Hanja: 秋, 鄒) in the Revised Romanization of Korean.[9][10]
Statistics
According to statistics cited by Patrick Hanks, there were 2,033 people on the island of Great Britain and 48 on the island of Ireland with the surname Chew as of 2011. In 1881 there had been 1,490 people with the surname in Great Britain, mainly in Lancashire, Yorkshire, Gloucestershire, and Bedfordshire.[2]
The 2010 United States census found 8,905 people with the surname Chew, making it the 3,988th-most-common name in the country. This represented a decrease in relative frequency, but an increase in absolute numbers, from 8,516 (3,831st-most-common) in the 2000 Census. In both censuses, about four-tenths of the bearers of the surname identified as Asian, four-tenths as White, and 15% as Black.[11] It was the 310th-most-common surname among respondents to the 2000 Census who identified as Asian.[12]
