Lĩu
given name · Latin script
Lĩu is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Hong Kong it is the 16th most common surname. Recorded meaning: From Chinese surnames, from Mandarin pronunciations, especially 劉／刘 (liú).
- TWTaiwan≈1 in 59(inferred from the name graph)
- CNChina≈1 in 98
- HKHong Kong≈1 in 165
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- #614 (measured from records)
- 5 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 521 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 59 (inferred from the name graph)
≈14,000,000 people, est.
of 19M surnames
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Taiwan, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Liu in US United States, CN China, AU Australia and 4 more.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
- Chinesesurnames(measured from records)
- Mandarinpronunciations(measured from records)
From Chinese surnames, from Mandarin pronunciations, especially 劉／刘 (liú).
Sources 5
- A concise dictionary of first names
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Wiktionary
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
- Schuessler, ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese (2007)
Attested across 25 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Lĩu 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.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | #254 | ≈14,000,000 est. | ≈1 in 98 | — | Liu | 284 |
| TW Taiwan | #102 | ≈400,000 est. | ≈1 in 59 | — | Liu | 209 |
| US United States | #285 | 78,370 | 1 in 4.2K | 127K | Liu | 521 |
| HK Hong Kong | #16 | ≈44,000 est. | ≈1 in 165 | — | Liu | 140 |
| MY Malaysia | #225 | ≈22,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.5K | — | Liu | 79 |
| AU Australia | #63 | ≈22,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.2K | — | Liu | 266 |
| SG Singapore | #32 | ≈7,300 est. | ≈1 in 852 | — | Liu | 147 |
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 — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020. 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).
Evidence(measured from records)
No register attests this spelling yet
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Lĩu mean, and where does it come from?
- From Chinese surnames, from Mandarin pronunciations, especially 劉／刘 (liú). Recorded by A concise dictionary of first names and Dictionary of American Family Names and 3 other sources.
- Is Lĩu a male or female name?
- Lĩu 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 Lĩu have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 14 million people named Lĩu in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled liu.
- How common is the name Lĩu?
- In the United States, the national register counted 78,370 people named Lĩu in 2010, about 1 in 4.2 thousand residents.
- How common is Lĩu compared with other names?
- In China, Lĩu is the 254th most common surname of 142,871 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Lĩu?
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/l%C4%A9uThe same 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), and bulk access is licensed separately.
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, “Lĩu” — the 254th most common surname in China. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.