Du
杜 — Dù
The 42nd most common surname in China
The 42nd most common surname in mainland China as of 2020 (English Wikipedia, "Du (surname)", accessed September 2026). Historically, Baidu Baike records roughly 540,000 bearers in the Song dynasty (0.7% of the population, ranked 29th) and about 380,000 in the Ming (ranked 60th).
Where the name comes from
The Du descend from the Tang (唐) clan, traced to Emperor Yao through his descendant Liu Lei. When King Cheng of Zhou destroyed the State of Tang he relocated its ruling duke to Du, southeast of modern Xi'an in Shaanxi, and the line became known as the Tang-Du (唐杜). Their head Du Bo was executed by King Xuan of Zhou; the statelet was annexed, and the kinsmen who remained at Du City took the place name as their surname.
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 杜.
- DuMandarin — mainland China, Taiwan
- ToCantonese — Hong Kong (e.g. film director Johnnie To)
- TouCantonese — Macau
- TohHokkien — Singapore, Malaysia (e.g. Singapore's Toh Chin Chye)
- TawHokkien
- ĐỗVietnamese
The character
Outside a name, 杜 is an ordinary word meaning birchleaf pear (tree).
- Strokes
- 7
- Radical
- 木
- As a word
- dù
Words built from 杜
The character does ordinary work in the language too. Each of these is a real word you can look up.