Beh (surname)
family name
Beh is a surname in various cultures. It may be a variant of the German surname Boehm, as well as a Southern Min spelling of three Chinese surnames Ma, Mai, and Bai.
Origins
As a German surname, Beh may have originated as a variant of Boehm, which is a toponymic surname from Bohemia. It is also a spelling of Southern Min pronunciations of three Chinese surnames, listed in the table below. These spellings of the Chinese surnames are often found among Malaysian Chinese.
It is also a surname among the Krahn people of Liberia and the Ivory Coast.
Statistics
According to statistics compiled by Patrick Hanks on the basis of the 2011 United Kingdom census and the Census of Ireland 2011, 74 people on the island of Great Britain and none on the island of Ireland bore the surname Beh in 2011. The 1881 United Kingdom census did not find anyone with this surname. The 2010 United States census found 513 people with the surname Beh, making it the 42,308th-most-common name overall. This represented an increase from 365 (53,191st-most-common) in the 2000 Census.
“Beh (surname)” enters the record as family name. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what surname, family and name can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Beh (surname)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, surname, family and name provides the most credible route into that argument.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q37516231. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2011, 1881, 2010 and 2000.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
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- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Beh (surname)”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Beh (surname) primary sources, Beh (surname) archive and surname research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Beh (surname)”?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Beh (surname)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.