Hei

given name · Latin script

Meaning, in Chinese: nonstandard spelling of hēi

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

/haj/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Hei is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.

rarermore common
  • USUnited States1 in 959K(measured from records)
  • SESweden1 in 53K
  • NLNetherlands1 in 173K

carrying the name, as counted by each country's national register. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

United States (measured from records)

347 people, 2020

Sources
167 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 53K (inferred from the name graph)

Sweden

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

from mhd. heie 'warden, overseer'; also heie 'enclosure, forest' or nd. 'heath'

Sources 1

  • Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung

Attested across 8 languages in the etymology graph.

How Hei is read(measured from records)

Hei is one spelling over 3 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 3 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.

  • Chinese37%

    nonstandard spelling of hēi

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • English34%

    Alternative spelling of he (Hebrew letter)

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • German9.2%

    from mhd. heie 'warden, overseer'; also heie 'enclosure, forest' or nd. 'heath'

    as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung

The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Hei counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.

Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.

Where Hei is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States—3471 in 959K400Hei167
SE Sweden—1911 in 53K191—4
NL Netherlands—1001 in 173K69—9
FI Finland—61 in 929K60Hei1
DK Denmark—31 in 2M3——
HK Hong Kong#312———Hei66

347 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.

Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).

Other names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Hei is also recorded as 4 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • German given name3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Germany, Austria, United States, Hong Kong

    Also written He-I

  • Spanish given name5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Argentina, Mexico, Hong Kong

    Also written Heí, Heï, Hèi, Hëî

  • a separate name2 spellings in the group

    Also written Héì

  • Russian given name4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Ukraine, Hong Kong

    Languages: Russian, Ukrainian

    Also written Heĭ

44 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Hei is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In enm, alternative form of hey (“hay”)

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In Romansh, yes (used to indicate agreement with the speaker in a conversation)

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In Galician, first-person singular present indicative of haber

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.

Notable people with this name(measured from records)

1400160018002000Hu Xi, b. 1437Li Xi, b. 1467Li Xi, b. 1504Heie Treier, b. 1963
  • Hu Xib. 1437not in their usual nameMing dynasty person CBDB = 199185
  • Li Xib. 1467not in their usual namepolitician
  • Li Xib. 1504not in their usual nameMing dynasty person CBDB = 67981
  • Heie Treierb. 1963EEnot in their usual nameEstonian art historian (born 1963)
  • Li Xinot in their usual nameNorthern Wei person CBDB = 31119
  • Li Xinot in their usual namepolitician
  • Li Xinot in their usual nameMing dynasty person CBDB = 359231
  • Li Xinot in their usual nameQing dynasty person CBDB = 359232

The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).

How to address them(machine-generated)

FormalDear Colleague,
InformalHello,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 36 sources across 20 countries.

Official registers attesting Hei
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—191#5,396
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020179#26,708
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020168#26,708
NL NetherlandsMeertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018)—69#5,516
FI FinlandDVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup)—60#4,486
FI FinlandDVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup)—59#4,642
NL NetherlandsMeertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018)—31#11,281
NL NetherlandsMeertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017)—14#23,864
FI FinlandDVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register)—6—
DK DenmarkDanmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts)—3#17,352

Reference works 4

  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Wikipedia surname tokens
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
  • Ethiopian name tokens (GitHub lehagere/ethiopian-names, 40/60 condominium list)

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

Where does the name Hei come from?
from mhd. heie 'warden, overseer'; also heie 'enclosure, forest' or nd. 'heath' Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
How do you pronounce Hei?
A machine transcription gives /haj/ (IPA) for Chinese.
What does the name Hei mean?
In Chinese, nonstandard spelling of hēi
Is Hei a male or female name?
Hei is recorded for both men and women. We don't publish a percentage split: a record's gender belongs to the person and is attached to every given name on that record, so names in cultures where a name string also carries a parent's or spouse's given name pick up large cross-gender counts.
In which country does Hei have the most bearers?
In the United States, the national register counted about 347 people named Hei, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled hei.
Where is Hei most common?
Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Hei is densest in Sweden — about 1 in 53 thousand people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
How common is the name Hei?
In the United States, the national register counted 347 people named Hei in 2020, about 1 in 959 thousand residents.
How common is Hei compared with other names?
In Hong Kong, Hei is the 312th most common given name of 23,276 given names recorded there.

What do you want to know about Hei?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/hei

The 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, “Hei” — the 312th most common given name in Hong Kong. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Hei parses inside a full name →