Where the name comes from
郭 means the outer wall of a city, and one strand of the surname is simply locational — those who lived outside the walls took the word as a name. The larger strand is dynastic: King Wen of Zhou's younger brothers Guo Zhong (虢仲) and Guo Shu (虢叔) were enfeoffed with the states of Eastern and Western Guo (虢), and because 虢 and 郭 were homophones in old Chinese, the states' descendants ended up written 郭. The clan's traditional seat is Taiyuan commandery.
The same name, spelled differently
A Chinese surname is a character, not a spelling. The Latin letters on a passport come from whichever dialect the name was written down from — so these are all 郭.
- GuoMandarin — mainland China, Taiwan
- KwokCantonese — Hong Kong and Guangdong
- KwockCantonese
- GuokCantonese
- QuekHokkien and Teochew
- KwekHokkien
- KoayHokkien and Teochew
- KueHokkien and Teochew
- KwikHokkien
- KuochCambodian Chinese communities
The character
Outside a name, 郭 is an ordinary word meaning city limits.
- Strokes
- 10
- Radical
- 阝
- As a word
- guō