Hu Shih, also known as Hu Suh in early references, was a Chinese diplomat, essayist and fiction writer, literary scholar, philosopher, and politician. Hu contributed to Chinese liberalism and language reform and advocated for the use of written vernacular Chinese. He participated in the May Fourth Movement and China's New Culture Movement. He was a president of Peking University. He had a wide range of interests such as literature, philosophy, history, textual criticism, and pedagogy. He was also a redology scholar.

Hu is a Chinese surname. In 2006, it was the 15th most common surname in China. In 2013, it was the 13th most common in China, with 13.7 million Chinese sharing this surname. In 2019, Hu dropped to 15th most common surname in Mainland China.