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Updated January 23, 2020

Family name origins & meanings

  • English : habitational name from a place in Somerset named Chew Magna, which is named for the river on which it stands, a Celtic name, perhaps cognate with Welsh cyw ‘young animal or bird’, ‘chicken’.
  • English : habitational name from places called Chew, in West Yorkshire and in the parish of Billington, Lancashire, named with Old English cēo ‘fish gill’, used in the transferred sense of a ravine, in a similar way to Old Norse gil.
  • English : derogatory nickname from Middle English chowe ‘chough’, Old English cēo, a bird closely related to the crow and the jackdaw, notorious for its chattering and thieving.
  • Korean : variant of Chu.
  • Chinese : variant of Zhao.

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