Given name & surname
Wan
“one who is gentle and gracious”
Wan is used as a given name and a surname. One Chinese interpretation is “one who is gentle and gracious.”
Meaning & origin
What it means
One Chinese interpretation is “one who is gentle and gracious.”
Where it comes from
An origin associated with this spelling is Chinese.
How it developed
In Carolinian usage, Wan developed from Juan.
The story
Published U.S. birth records include this spelling as early as 1955. This is the earliest published observation available here, rather than a date for the name’s origin.
From dated birth records
Wan through the years
- Babies since 1880
- 15
- 5 boys · 10 girls
- Most popular year
- 1955
- 5 babies
- 2025
- 0
- Outside the ranked list
- 2021–25 vs 2016–20
- —
- Too few births to compare
By the numbers
The most recent published U.S. birth count for girls is 5 in 1992. Later missing counts do not mean the name went unused. Published U.S. population figures for this spelling include 2,599 as a first name in 2020; 7,422 as a surname in 2020.
From Social Security birth records and U.S. Census name counts for this exact spelling. Other spellings are counted separately.
Wan’s family of names
In Carolinian usage, Wan developed from the Spanish form Juan. In Carolinian usage, Wan has a conventional equivalent in the English form John.
The ring: across languages.
Across languages 13
Equivalents and cognates in other languages, plus older forms it grew from.
Show 5 moreShow fewer
People named Wan
- Kim Wantable tennis playerborn 1961
- Wang Wanpoet693–751
- Junaidi Arifbadminton playerborn 2002
- Wan KuzainMalaysian-American soccer playerborn 1998
Listed by how widely each person is written about, which says nothing about the name itself.
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