Cheung
A Cantonese surname most often written with several different Chinese characters, including common ones meaning “to soar,” “to grow,” or “to be strong.”
The #1,920 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 16,453 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Cheung is an English romanization used for more than one Chinese surname, most often from Cantonese pronunciations of characters such as 張/张, 章, or the less common 鄭 in some regional systems, depending on family and dialect background. Because Chinese surnames are written in characters rather than in a single alphabetic spelling, the Roman form Cheung does not by itself identify one fixed literal meaning. In many overseas Chinese families it reflects a Cantonese pronunciation that older systems rendered differently from Mandarin-based spellings such as Zhang, Cheung, or Cheng.
History
The spelling Cheung is especially common among Cantonese-speaking migrants from Guangdong, Hong Kong, and diaspora communities in North America, Southeast Asia, and Britain. Its frequency in English-speaking countries reflects Romanization practices rather than a single ancestral surname line. In modern records it often appears alongside related spellings such as Cheong, Chang, or Zhang, depending on region and transcription tradition.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Because the same Roman spelling can represent different Chinese characters, two people named Cheung may have surnames with different literal meanings and historical lineages.
Notable people named Cheung
- Maggie Cheung (b. 1964)
- Leslie Cheung (1956–2003)
Sourced from Wikidata; linked to their Wikipedia page.