Let
qbe a prime power and
m≥3be odd. Suppose that
n=aq2m−1with
a∣(qm+1)and
3≤a≤2(q2−q+1). This paper mainly determines the actual maximum designed distance of Hermitian dual-containing Bose-Chaudhuri-Hocquenghem (BCH) codes over
Fq2of length
n. Firstly, we give the maximum designed distance
δm,aRof narrow-sense Hermitian dual-containing BCH codes. Secondly, we show that there are also non-narrow-sense ones of designed distance up to
δm,aR. It is worth mentioning that our maximum designed distance
δm,aR>⌈2a⌉δmA, where
δmAis given by Alyet al.(IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory, vol. 53, no. 3, pp. 1183-1188, 2007). Thus, many families of Hermitian dual-containing BCH codes with relatively large designed distance are obtained. Using the Hermitian construction to them, we can subsequently construct different classes of nonprimitive quantum codes, which are new in the sense that their parameters are not covered in the literature.