Koh
A surname with several possible origins, most commonly found in Asia and sometimes used as a shortened or variant form in European records.
The #9,090 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 85,882 Americans shares it.
Etymology
This surname can have different origins depending on the family and region. In Chinese contexts, Koh is often a romanization variant of several surnames, especially forms rendered in older systems from Cantonese or other southern dialects. In European scholarship, older writers also linked Koh to unrelated words such as a Coptic term for “rock” or a Persian word for “hill,” but those notes are not enough to establish a single surname origin.
History
As a surname, Koh is especially associated with East and Southeast Asian families, where it may reflect local romanization traditions rather than one fixed spelling. In Western surname literature it also appears only incidentally, which suggests the name was not treated there as a major native English surname. Modern bearers are spread widely through diaspora communities, especially in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and among overseas Chinese populations.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
The same spelling, Koh, can represent different family names in different languages, so two people with the surname may have entirely separate origins.
From the historical record
“OF FAMILY NAMES. 99 COE. The primitive word Co is an elevation, exalted. Koh, in the Coptic, is a rock; Jcoh, Persic, a hill; Coey, Gaelic, a hero, literally, a dog. Lower says that Coe is a Norfolk provincialism to designate " an odd old fellow." COOEY. Gaelic, Cv^maigJie, figuratively, the hero or swift”
— An Etymological Dictionary of Family and Christian Names