In Hong Kong, the surname is romanised as Kwan in Cantonese.

In Macao, the surname is as Kuan due to the Portuguese influence.

In many overseas Chinese communities, both spellings, Kuan[1] and Kwan, as well as Quan, are common.

The Vietnamese surname, Quan and the Japanese surname, Seki, was derived from the same Chinese character as the Chinese surname (The Japanese Kanji 関 is a Shinjitai of the Chinese character 關).

A number of groups in different geographic areas are believed to have shared the surname in history.