Find out how popular the last name Hsu is in the United States and learn more about the meaning, history, and race and ethnic origin of people in America who are named Hsu.

Hsu, like all of the last names we have data for, is identified by the U.S. Census Bureau as a surname which has more than 100 occurrences in the United States in the Decennial Census survey. The most recent statistics we have for the Hsu surname is from the 2010 census data.

Popularity of Hsu in America

Hsu is the 2147th most popular name in America based on the data we have collected from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Hsu surname appeared 16,907 times in the 2010 census and if you were to sample 100,000 people in the United States, approximately 6 people would have the surname Hsu.

We can also compare 2010 data for Hsu to data from the previous census in 2000. The table below contains all of the statistics for both years in a side-by-side comparison.

The history of the last name Hsu

The surname Hsu originated in China and is a romanized spelling of the Chinese surname 徐 (Xú). It is one of the most common surnames in China, with a long and storied history dating back to ancient times.

The name Xú can be traced back to the Zhou Dynasty (1046-256 BC), when it was first used as a clan name. The character 徐 is thought to have derived from an ancient word meaning "to go slowly" or "to be deliberate," reflecting the virtues of patience and thoughtfulness that were valued in ancient Chinese culture.

The earliest recorded instances of the surname Hsu can be found in the Classic of Poetry, one of the earliest existing collections of Chinese poetry and songs, dating from the 11th to 7th centuries BC. The name appears in several poems, indicating its widespread use among the nobility and literati of the time.

During the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD), a prominent figure named Hsu Xuan (647-729) was a celebrated scholar and calligrapher who served as an imperial tutor and played a significant role in the development of the guwen movement, which advocated for a return to the classical literary styles of ancient times.

In the Song Dynasty (960-1279 AD), the Hsu family produced several notable individuals, including Hsu Jing (1091-1153), a prominent Neo-Confucian philosopher and scholar, and Hsu Chenghao (1050-1125), a renowned painter and calligrapher.

In more recent history, Hsu Shih-Ying (1910-1997) was a prominent Chinese diplomat and ambassador to several countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom. He played a crucial role in establishing diplomatic relations between China and Western nations in the post-World War II era.

Another notable figure is Hsu Chih-Mo (1918-1998), a Taiwanese writer and intellectual who was a leading figure in the modernist literary movement in Taiwan and a vocal advocate for democracy and human rights.

The Hsu surname has also been prominent in other parts of the world, including Taiwan, where it is one of the most common surnames. In the United States, notable individuals with the surname Hsu include Steven Chu (born 1948), a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and former United States Secretary of Energy under President Barack Obama.

Race and ethnic origin of people with the last name Hsu

We also have some data on the ancestry of people with the surname Hsu.

The below race categories are the modified race categories used in the Census Bureau's population estimates program. All people were categorized into six mutually exclusive racial and Hispanic origin groups:

1. White only
2. Black only
3. American Indian and Alaskan Native only
4. Asian and Pacific Islander only
5. Hispanic
6. Two or More Races

For the most recent 2010 census data, the race/ethnic origin breakdown for Hsu was:

Note: Any fields showing (S) means the data was suppressed for privacy so that the data does not in any way identify any specific individuals.

Since we have data from the previous census in 2000, we can also compare the values to see how the popularity of Hsu has changed in the 10 years between the two census surveys.

Data source

The last name data and ethnic breakdown of last names is sourced directly from the Decennial Census survey, conducted every 10 years by the United States Census Bureau.

The history and meaning of the name Hsu was researched and written by our team of onomatology and genealogy experts.

If you have a correction or suggestion to improve the history of Hsu, please contact us.

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