Ke (surname)

Ke (Chinese: 柯; pinyin: Kē) is a Chinese surname. It originally appeared on the Hundred Family Surnames.^[where?] As of 2006 was no longer one of the top 100 most common surnames.^{[citation needed]} A 2013 study found that it was the 145th most common surname, shared by 1.06 million people or 0.080% of the population, with the province most being Hubei. It is also spelled as Quah, Qua, Kua, Kuah, Kwa, Ke, Ker, Ko, Kok, Or or O in English, owing to variations in dialect (for instance, O derives from the Cantonese pronunciation of the character) or romanisation system (compare Ke, which derives from Pinyin, with Ko, which derives from Wade-Giles.)

There are several origins of this last name:

1. the descendants of Duke Ke Lu (柯盧) of the State of Wu during the Spring and Autumn period;
2. the descendants of a tribe in Northern Wei Dynasty whose surname was originally Keba (柯拔) but was simplified to Ke;
3. the descendants of the Qiang tribe or the Xianbei tribe with the last name Ke.

One website lists it as originating from the town of Han in Zhejiang Province^[1] while another states it originated in Jiyang Prefecture (located in present-day Dingtao County, Shandong Province) during the Jin Dynasty (266–420).^[2]

• Cua Yi Lam, baptized as Domingo Lamco, patrilineal ancestor of Jose Rizal, Philippine national hero
• Ke Mengde, a Song Dynasty poet
• Ke Jiusi (柯九思), a Yuan Dynasty officer
• Ke Qian, a Ming Dynasty scholar
• Ke Weizhen, a Qing Dynasty poet
• Blackie Ko Shou Liang (柯受良), modern director, actor, stuntman
• Alan Ke You Lun (柯有綸) a Taiwanese singer and actor; son of Blackie Ko Shou Liang
• Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘), Taiwanese politician
• Danny Quah Professor of economics, London School of Economics
• Kwa Geok Choo, the wife of Singapore's first prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew
• Ko Chen-tung (柯震東), a Taiwanese actor and singer
• Ko Chia-yen (柯佳嬿), a Taiwanese actress
• Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), mayor of Taipei
• Ke Jie (柯洁), a Chinese World Go Champion
• Quah Chow Cheung (柯昭璋), a Hong Kongese commissioner
• Simon Ko, Deputy Foreign Minister of the Republic of China
• Quah Kim Lye, a Singaporean footballer
• Quah Kim Song (柯金松), a Singaporean footballer
• Quah Ting Wen (柯婷文), a Singaporean swimmer
• Quah Zheng Wen (柯政文), a Singaporean swimmer
• Quah Jing Wen (柯敬文), a Singaporean swimmer
• Ke Qingshi (柯庆施), senior Chinese politician
• Quah Nian King (柯年庆), prominent entrepreneur in Malaysia and Singapore

Kha is a Vietnamese variant of the family name Ke (柯)

• Kha Mỹ Vân, a Vietnamese model

• Hundred Family Surnames
• Chinese name

• Origin of surname Ke, Ker and Quah
• Google group post on Chinese surname Ke number 164

Surname list

This page lists people with the surname Ke.
If an internal link intending to refer to a specific person led you to this page, you may wish to change that link by adding the person's given name(s) to the link.