Liu
surname · Latin script
Meaning: from the name of an area called Liu Xia in the state of Lu (in present-day Shanxi province)
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Liu is a surname 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.
- 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)
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)
from the name of an area called Liu Xia in the state of Lu (in present-day Shanxi province). During the Spring and Autumn period (722-481 bc), this was granted to a counselor famous for his high moral character. His descendants adopted the name of this area as their surname.
Sources 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Liu 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).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Liu is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
from the name of the state of Liu, which was granted to a descendant of the model emperor Yao (2357-2257 Bc).
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In English, Person from the Chinese state of Liu.
as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Chinese variant of Liao.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In cdo, pointed, tapering, mect., sharp, piercing, as a wind, sharp, pointed, (hiing-gidng-liu-liu)
as a wordDictionary of the Foochow Dialect
In cdo, the Loochoo club, in the suburbs of small cups used for oil lamps
as a wordDictionary of the Foochow Dialect
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)
- Emperor Wu of Hanb. 156not in their usual nameseventh emperor of the Han dynasty of China (157 BC–87 BC)
- Liu Shaoqib. 1898CN2nd President of the People's Republic of China (1898–1969)
- Liu Xiaobob. 1955CNChinese literary critic, writer, professor, and human rights activist (1955–2017)
- Gordon Liub. 1955CNChinese martial arts film actor (born 1955)
- Andy Laub. 1961CNnot in their usual nameHong Kong actor, film producer, and singer
- Lucy Liub. 1968USAmerican actress (born 1968)
- Liu Yangb. 1978CNChinese astronaut
- Liu Yifeib. 1987CNChinese-American actress and singer (born 1987)
- Simu Liub. 1989CNChinese-Canadian actor and author (born 1989)
- Dallas Liub. 2001USAmerican actor
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).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 75 sources across 39 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 127K | #232 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 78K | #411 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 48K | #650 |
Reference works 6
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
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 Liu mean, and where does it come from?
- from the name of an area called Liu Xia in the state of Lu (in present-day Shanxi province). Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- In which country does Liu have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 14 million people named Liu in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled liu.
- How common is the name Liu?
- In the United States, the national register counted 78,370 people named Liu in 2010, about 1 in 4.2 thousand residents.
- How common is Liu compared with other names?
- In China, Liu is the 254th most common surname of 142,871 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Liu?
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/liuThe 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, “Liu” — the 254th most common surname in China. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.