Wong
An English surname from a word meaning “meadow” or “field.”
The #274 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 2,772 Americans shares it.
Etymology
This surname is linked to the Old English word wang, meaning a meadow, plain, or field. Historical notes also connect it with Old Norse vangr, which has the same basic sense. The name likely began as a topographic surname for someone who lived by or on a grassy open tract of land.
History
The surname is rare in English records compared with the much more common Chinese surname Wong, but it does appear in older English place-names and dialectal usage. Early surname writers noted forms in the Midlands and northern England, where local landscape words often became family names. In modern usage, however, the spelling is especially well known as a romanization of several Chinese surnames.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Old map references preserved the word wong in the sense of a meadow, showing how long some landscape terms survived in local English dialects.
From the historical record
“to -worth, e.g. Askworth, Ashworth.1 Also Wythe. Wong. A meadow, AS. wang. There are several " wongs " in old maps of Nottingham. Compound Wetwan [Thomas de Wetewange, Archbp. Peckham's Let. 1279-92]. Identical with ON. vangr, as in Stavan- ger—”
— SurnamesNotable people named Wong
- Lawrence Wong (b. 1972)
- Anna May Wong (1904–1961)
- Faye Wong (b. 1969)
Sourced from Wikidata; linked to their Wikipedia page.