零
org · Han script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
零 is a name written in the Han script, most frequently recorded in China. Recorded meaning: From Middle Chinese 零 (MC leng) with an original meaning of a small rainfall.
- CNChina
- TWTaiwan
- JPJapan
Where the name is found, darker where our sources hold more of it. No national register counts its bearers anywhere we hold data, so the map carries no figures. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
From Middle Chinese 零 (MC leng) with an original meaning of a small rainfall. The character was later repurposed in 1248 by mathematician Li Ye as a placeholder, extending from its a little bit (of rain) meaning to indicate a bit more remaining. In Li Ye's notation, a number like 302 would be represented as 三百零二 (èr), literally three hundred and remaining two, with the 零 character used as a means of skipping the tens place, by indicating zero tens. It would thus implicitly take on the meaning of zero.
Sources 5
- Baxter-Sagart Old Chinese reconstruction, version 1.1 (2014)
- KANJIDIC2 (EDRDG)
- Unihan Database (Unicode Consortium)
- Wiktionary
- 中国姓氏大辞典 (Chinese Surnames Mega-Dictionary)
Attested across 6 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Recorded in:
No national register we accept counts this name’s bearers, so the page lists where it is found and publishes no figure.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 5 sources across 2 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | ChineseNames: given names by birth decade/cohort 1930-2008 | 2004 | — | — |
| CN China | ChineseNames: given names by birth decade/cohort 1930-2008 | 1995 | — | — |
| CN China | ChineseNames: given names by birth decade/cohort 1930-2008 | 1985 | — | — |
| CN China | ChineseNames: given names by birth decade/cohort 1930-2008 | 1975 | — | — |
| CN China | ChineseNames: given names by birth decade/cohort 1930-2008 | 1965 | — | — |
| CN China | ChineseNames: given names by birth decade/cohort 1930-2008 | 1945 | — | — |
| CN China | ChineseNames: household-registered population — surnames + given names (no time axis) | — | — | — |
Reference works 1
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name 零 mean, and where does it come from?
- From Middle Chinese 零 (MC leng) with an original meaning of a small rainfall. Recorded by Baxter-Sagart Old Chinese reconstruction, version 1.1 (2014) and KANJIDIC2 (EDRDG) and 3 other sources.
- In which country does 零 have the most bearers?
- 零 is most frequently recorded in China.
What do you want to know about 零?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/%E9%9B%B6The payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “零”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.