Situ is one of the more common
surviving
Survival skills are techniques that a person may use in order to sustain life in any type of natural environment or built environment. These techniques are meant to provide basic necessities for human life which include water, food, and shelt ...
Chinese compound surname
A Chinese compound surname is a Chinese surname using more than one character. Many of these compound surnames derive from Zhou dynasty Chinese noble and official titles, professions, place names and other areas, to serve a purpose. Some are origi ...
s. It is also spelled in
Wade–Giles
Wade–Giles () is a romanization system for Mandarin Chinese. It developed from a system produced by Thomas Francis Wade, during the mid-19th century, and was given completed form with Herbert A. Giles's '' Chinese–English Dictionary'' o ...
as Ssŭtu or in the
Mathews system as Szŭtu, and romanised from
Cantonese
Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding are ...
as Szeto, Seto, or Sitou, or from
Taishanese
Taishanese (), alternatively romanized in Cantonese as Toishanese or Toisanese, in local dialect as Hoisanese or Hoisan-wa, is a dialect of Yue Chinese native to Taishan, Guangdong. Although it is related to Cantonese, Taishanese has little ...
as Soohoo.
It originates from the
ancient Chinese title Situ, which can be
translated as "Minister over the Masses". The surname is common in
Guangdong
Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...
province, particularly around
Kaiping
Kaiping (), alternately romanized in Cantonese as Hoiping, is a county-level city in Guangdong Province, China. It is located ín the western section of the Pearl River Delta and administered as part of the prefecture-level city of Jiangmen. ...
.
Statistics
According to data from the
in 2010, Situ was China's fourth-most common compound surname, behind
Ouyang
Ouyang () is a Chinese surname. It is the most common two-character Chinese compound surname, being the only two-character name of the 400 most common Chinese surnames, according to a 2013 study, and is one of the few two-character surnames that ha ...
, , and
Huangfu. The census found roughly 45,000 bearers of the surname.
However it is not among the top 400 surnames overall in China.
The following table presents statistics for more common spellings of this surname in the United States, according to the
United States Census. The
Hanyu Pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...
spelling Situ became more common between 2000 and 2010, while Szeto, Seto, and Soohoo remained at roughly the same rankings during that time period. Other spellings such as Ssutu, Szutu, Sitou, and Seetoo occurred fewer than 100 times in census data. Some of these spellings may also correspond to non-Chinese surnames; for example, Seto is also a Japanese surname (written in
kanji
are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...
as ).
People
People with this surname include:
*
Situ Qiao
Situ Qiao (; 1902 – 16 February 1958) was a Chinese oil painter and graphic artist. An important member of the Lingnan School of art, he was also known for his friendship with the influential writer Lu Xun. His most famous work is the 1940 pa ...
(; 1902–1958), Chinese oil painter
*
Situ Huimin
Situ Huimin (; 16 February 1910 – 4 April 1987), was a Chinese film director, screenwriter and actor, born in Kaiping, Guangdong.
He joined the Communist Youth League in 1925 and the Communist Party of China in 1927. The next year, he went t ...
(; 1910–1987), Chinese film director
*
Situ Guong (; 1911–?), Chinese Olympic long jumper
*
Szeto Wai (; 1913–1991), Hong Kong engineer and architect
*
Szeto Wah
Szeto Wah (; 28 February 1931 – 2 January 2011) was a prominent Hong Kong democracy activist and politician. He was the founding chairman of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, the Hong Kong Profes ...
(; 1931–2011), Hong Kong politician
*
Da-Hong Seetoo (; born 1960), Chinese-born American recording engineer and violinist
*
Sitoh Yih Pin
Sitoh Yih Pin ( zh, s=司徒宇斌, p=Sītú Yǔbīn; born 1963) is a Singaporean politician. A member of the governing People's Action Party (PAP), he has been the Member of Parliament (MP) representing Potong Pasir SMC since 2011.
An account ...
(; born 1963), Singaporean politician
*
Antony Szeto (; born 1964), Australian director, martial artist, actor, stunt coordinator
*
Szeto Kam-Yuen (; 1964–2012), Hong Kong screenwriter
*
Andy Seto
Andy Seto (; born 3 June 1969) is a comic artist who specialises in martial-arts based stories.
Biography
Seto's works include his main series, "Cyber Weapon Z." He has also drawn a graphic novel adaptation of the earlier Crouching Tiger, Hid ...
(; born 1969), Hong Kong comic artist
*
Carwai Seto (; born 1973), Canadian swimmer who represented Taiwan at the 1988 Summer Olympics
*
Szeto Man Chun (; born 1975), Hong Kong football manager
*
Hayden Szeto
Hayden Chun Hay Szeto (born September 11, 1985; ) is a Canadian actor of Hong Kong descent, known for his role as Erwin Kim in the comedy-drama film '' The Edge of Seventeen'' (2016). In 2017, he portrayed Ken Luang in the NBC comedy series ''T ...
(; born 1985), Canadian television actor
*
Nikki SooHoo (; born 1988), American television actress
*
Brandon Soo Hoo
Brandon Soo Hoo (born November 2, 1995) is an American actor and martial artist known for playing Tran in the 2008 film ''Tropic Thunder'' and for his series regular role on the Cartoon Network sketch comedy series ''Incredible Crew''. Soo Hoo pl ...
(born 1995), American television actor
*
Dixon Seeto (), Fijian businessman
*
Karen Seto
Karen Ching-Yee Seto is a geographer, urbanisation and land change scientist, and Frederick C. Hixon Professor of Geography and Urbanisation Science at Yale University. She is an expert on urbanisation and sustainability, and satellite remote se ...
(), American geographer
References
Further reading
*
{{surname
Chinese-language surnames
Individual Chinese surnames