Ri

loc · Latin script

Meaning: Initialism of Rhode Island: a state of the United States

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

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

rarermore common
  • USUnited States1 in 499K(measured from records)
  • SESweden1 in 600K
  • FIFinland1 in 929K

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.

United States (measured from records)

666 people, 2020

Sources
178 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 499K (inferred from the name graph)

United States

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

Locally spelled Ŕî in DZ Algeria.

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

Initialism of Rhode Island: a state of the United States.

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested across 11 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Ri 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 Ri is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States6661 in 499K387Ri178
BR Brazil421 in 5M932Ri2
DZ Algeria≈20 est.≈1 in 2.2M—Ŕî6
SE Sweden171 in 600K17—7
FI Finland61 in 929K30—4
DK Denmark31 in 2M3——

666 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; IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); 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)

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

  • a separate name2 spellings in the group
  • Spanish given name6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Mexico, Spain, Colombia, United States

    Also written Rí, R-I, Rî, Rï

  • Chinese surname5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in China, Taiwan

    Also written Rï, Rî, Rí

  • a separate name7 spellings in the group

    Also written R-I, Ři, Rī, Rì, Ří

66 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)

Ri 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.

  • In cdo, gradually, | drums, as when on a expedition

    as a wordDictionary of the Foochow Dialect

  • In kaw, particle with prepositional function (also expressed as _i_, _iŋ_); occurs before nouns, and as a preposition with the meaning ‘in, on, by, through, with’ ([Zoetmulder 1982](Source#cldf:zoetmulder1982)) which function as grammatical subject (esp. before place-names), as grammatical object

    as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0

  • In pmf, locative preposition: at, in, on, to; can be used with pronouns, as in _ku-keni ri siko_ (1sg-bring _ri_ 2sg) ‘I bring it to you’

    as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0

  • In Indonesian, initialism of Republik Indonesia (“Republic of Indonesia”)

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

  • In Japanese, The hiragana syllable り (ri) or the katakana syllable リ (ri) in Hepburn romanization.

    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)

1850190019502000Syngman Rhee, b. 1875Lee Myung-bak, b. 1941Lee Jae Myung, b. 1963Lee Byung-hun, b. 1970Lee Jung-jae, b. 1972James Kyson Lee, b. 1975Yi So-Yeon, b. 1978Ki-hong Lee, b. 1986Pavlo Li, b. 1988Ri Sol-ju, b. 1989
  • Syngman Rheeb. 1875KRnot in their usual namePresident of South Korea from 1948 to 1960
  • Lee Myung-bakb. 1941KRnot in their usual namePresident of South Korea from 2008 to 2013
  • Lee Jae Myungb. 1963KRnot in their usual namePresident of South Korea since 2025
  • Lee Byung-hunb. 1970KRnot in their usual nameSouth Korean actor (born 1970)
  • Lee Jung-jaeb. 1972KRnot in their usual nameSouth Korean actor and businessman (born 1972)
  • James Kyson Leeb. 1975KRnot in their usual nameSouth Korean and American actor
  • Yi So-Yeonb. 1978KRnot in their usual nameSouth Korean astronaut
  • Ki-hong Leeb. 1986KRnot in their usual nameSouth Korean-American actor
  • Pavlo Lib. 1988UAnot in their usual nameUkrainian actor (1998-2022)
  • Ri Sol-jub. 1989KPFirst Lady of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea

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 31 sources across 21 countries.

Official registers attesting Ri
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—932#9,908
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020387#56,914
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020364#16,800
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010348#58,337
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020302#16,800
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000247#73,154
BR BrazilIBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror)202242—
FI FinlandDVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup)—30#13,360
FI FinlandDVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup)—30#13,856
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—29#74,979
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—17#27,379
FI FinlandDVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register)—6—

Reference works 2

  • Wikipedia surname tokens
  • 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 Ri mean, and where does it come from?
Initialism of Rhode Island: a state of the United States. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
In which country does Ri have the most bearers?
In the United States, the national register counted about 666 people named Ri, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled ri.
Where is Ri most common?
Ri is densest in the United States, where the national register counts about 1 in 499 thousand people carrying it.
How common is the name Ri?
In the United States, the national register counted 666 people named Ri in 2020, about 1 in 499 thousand residents.

What do you want to know about Ri?

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

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, “Ri”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Ri parses inside a full name →