Liao
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in English: Indicates action completion (perfective aspect)
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Liao is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- TWTaiwan≈1 in 150(inferred from the name graph)
- CNChina≈1 in 1.4K
- SGSingapore≈1 in 9.8K
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)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 328 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 150 (inferred from the name graph)
≈1,000,000 people, est.
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)
Chinese empire/dynasty that Koryo formed tributary ties with
Sources 1
- Korea - A Historical and Cultural Dictionary
Attested across 4 languages in the etymology graph.
How Liao is read(measured from records)
Liao is one spelling over 2 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 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.
- English44%
Indicates action completion (perfective aspect).
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
river, China
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
- Chinese35%
nonstandard spelling of liāo
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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)
Liao 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 | #694 | ≈1,000,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.4K | — | Liao | 157 |
| TW Taiwan | #166 | ≈160,000 est. | ≈1 in 150 | — | Liao | 171 |
| US United States | — | 8,482 | 1 in 39K | 11K | Liao | 328 |
| PH Philippines | — | ≈2,800 est. | ≈1 in 39K | — | Liao | 76 |
| MY Malaysia | — | ≈2,600 est. | ≈1 in 13K | — | Liao | 30 |
| HK Hong Kong | #229 | ≈1,800 est. | ≈1 in 4.1K | — | Liao | 58 |
| SG Singapore | #588 | ≈640 est. | ≈1 in 9.8K | — | Liao | 73 |
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)
Liao is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Korean, Chinese empire/dynasty that Koryo formed tributary ties with
as a nameKorea - A Historical and Cultural Dictionary
from a person named Liao Shu’an in ancient China, about whom nothing more is known.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
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)
- Liao Zhongkaib. 1877USChinese politician (1877-1925)
- Liu Chuanzhib. 1944CNnot in their usual nameChinese businessman
- Liu Kai-chib. 1953GBnot in their usual nameHong Kong actor (1953–2021)
- Liao Yiwub. 1958CNChinese musician and writer
- Liao Fanb. 1974CNChinese actor
- Jerry Yanb. 1977TWnot in their usual nameTaiwanese actor-singer
- Bernice Jan Liub. 1979CAnot in their usual nameHong Kong actress
- Liu Yanb. 1980CNnot in their usual nameChinese actress (1980- )
- Ava Yub. 1985CNnot in their usual nameHong Kong actor
- Ashley Liaob. 2001USChinese-American actress
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 34 sources across 20 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 11K | #3,131 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 8.5K | #4,177 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 5.8K | #5,534 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 5
- 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)
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 Liao come from?
- Chinese empire/dynasty that Koryo formed tributary ties with Recorded by Korea - A Historical and Cultural Dictionary.
- What does the name Liao mean?
- In English, Indicates action completion (perfective aspect).
- In which country does Liao have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 1.0 million people named Liao in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled liao.
- How common is the name Liao?
- In the United States, the national register counted 8,482 people named Liao in 2010, about 1 in 39 thousand residents.
- How common is Liao compared with other names?
- In China, Liao is the 694th most common surname of 142,871 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Liao?
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/liaoThe 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, “Liao” — the 694th most common surname in China. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.