Lei (surname)

Lei
Pronunciation Léi (Mandarin)
Lûi (Hokkien)
Language(s) Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean
Origin
Language(s) Chinese
Word/Name China
Meaning thunder
Other names
Variant(s) Lei (Mandarin)
Lui, Leoi, Loi (Cantonese)
Louie, Louis (Taishanese)
Lui (Hokkien, Teochew)
Lūi (Gan)
No, Ro (Korean)
Lôi (Vietnamese)

Lei is the pinyin romanization of the Chinese surname 雷 (Léi).

Additionally, the very common Chinese surname Li (李) is sometimes romanized as "Lei", particularly among the Macanese.

Romanization

雷 is also romanized as Lui in Hokkien and Teochew, and Loi in Cantonese; Louie or Louis in Taishanese; Lūi in Gan.

It is rendered as Lôi in Vietnamese; Roe (뢰) or Noe (뇌) in Korean; and Rai in Japanese.

Distribution

雷 is the 79th-most-common surname in mainland China but not included among the 100 most common surnames on Taiwan.

In the United States, Lei is an uncommon surname, ranking 14,849th during the 1990 census and 6,583rd during the year 2000 census.[1] In order, "Roe", "Louis", "Noe", "Louie", and "Lui" were all more common than the pinyin name; Loi and Rai were quite uncommon; and Leoi was held by fewer than 100 US residents and left unlisted by the Census Bureau.[1]

In Canada, Lei and Lui were among the 200 most common peculiarly Chinese-Canadian surnames found in a 2010 study by Baiju Shah & al, which data-mined the Registered Persons Database of Canadian health card recipients in the province of Ontario.[2] Rai was found, but among the most common surnames of the Indian-Canadian community.[2]

Origin

雷 is the Chinese word for "thunder".

In Old Chinese, its pronunciation has been reconstructed as *C.rˤuj; and in Middle Chinese, as Lwoj.[3]

List of persons with the surname

Lei
Louie

See also

Look up 雷 or kaminari in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

References

  1. 1 2 US Census Bureau. Op. cit. Public Broadcasting Service. "How Popular Is Your Last Name?" Accessed 6 Apr 2012.
  2. 1 2 Shah, B. R.; Chiu, M.; Amin, S.; Ramani, M.; Sadry, S.; Tu, J. V. (2010). "Surname lists to identify South Asian and Chinese ethnicity from secondary data in Ontario, Canada: A validation study". BMC Medical Research Methodology 10: 42. doi:10.1186/1471-2288-10-42. PMC 2877682. PMID 20470433.
  3. ↑ Baxter, Wm. H. & Sagart, Laurent. Baxter–Sagart Old Chinese Reconstruction PDF (1.93 MB), p. 88. 2011. Accessed 6 April 2012.
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