Prior to the Song dynasty (960–1279), the word mantou meant both filled and unfilled buns.[12] The term baozi arose in the Song dynasty to indicate filled buns only.[13] As a result, mantou gradually came to indicate only unfilled buns in Mandarin and other varieties of Chinese.
In many areas, however, mantou still retains its meaning of filled buns. In the Jiangnan region where Wu Chinese is spoken, it usually means both filled and unfilled buns. In Shanxi, where Jin Chinese is spoken, unfilled buns are often called momo (饃饃), which is simply the character for "steamed bun". The name momo spread to Tibet and Nepal and usually now refers to filled buns or dumplings.[14]
The name mantou is cognate to manty and mant?; these are filled dumplings in Turkish,[15] Persian,[16] Uzbek,[17] and Pakistani ("mantu")[18] cuisines. In Japan, manjū (饅頭) usually indicates filled buns, which traditionally contain bean paste or minced meat-vegetable mixture (nikuman 肉まん "meat manjū").[19] Filled mantou are called siyopaw in Philippine,[20] ultimately derived from Chinese shāobāo (燒包). In Thailand, they called filled mantou as "salapao" (???????).[21] In Korea, mandu (??; 饅頭)[22] can refer to both baozi or jiaozi (餃子). In Mongolian cuisine, manty or mantu are steamed dumplings[23] and a steamed variation is said to have led to the Korean mandu.[24] In Singapore, the dish chilli crab is commonly served with a fried version of mantou.[25][26][27]