Liew
surname · Latin script
Meaning: probably a variant of Liu 1
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/liəw/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Liew is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- USUnited States1 in 327K(measured from records)
- SESweden1 in 121K
- NLNetherlands1 in 421K
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)
- Sources
- 267 (measured from records)
- 1 in 121K (inferred from the name graph)
1,017 people, 2010
Highest-authority source
Sweden
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
probably a variant of Liu 1. This spelling is found mainly in Malaysia.
Sources 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Where in the world(measured from records)
Liew 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | — | 1,017 | 1 in 327K | 1.2K | Liew | 267 |
| SE Sweden | — | 84 | 1 in 121K | 84 | — | 9 |
| NL Netherlands | — | 41 | 1 in 421K | 41 | Liew | 15 |
| CH Switzerland | — | 16 | 1 in 525K | 16 | — | 5 |
| PL Poland | — | 13 | 1 in 2.9M | 8 | — | — |
| FI Finland | — | 10 | 1 in 557K | 10 | — | 2 |
| SG Singapore | #118 | — | — | — | Liew | 143 |
1,017 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. 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; CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames). 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)
Liew is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In wuu, Connect
as a wordA Vocabulary of the Shanghai Dialect
In wuu, Gentian
as a wordA Vocabulary of the Shanghai Dialect
In wuu, Tangle
as a wordA Vocabulary of the Shanghai Dialect
In wuu, Lotus
as a wordA Vocabulary of the Shanghai 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. 1898CNnot in their usual name2nd President of the People's Republic of China (1898–1969)
- Liu Xiaobob. 1955CNnot in their usual nameChinese literary critic, writer, professor, and human rights activist (1955–2017)
- Gordon Liub. 1955CNnot in their usual nameChinese martial arts film actor (born 1955)
- Andy Laub. 1961CNnot in their usual nameHong Kong actor, film producer, and singer
- Lucy Liub. 1968USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress (born 1968)
- Liu Yangb. 1978CNnot in their usual nameChinese astronaut
- Liu Yifeib. 1987CNnot in their usual nameChinese-American actress and singer (born 1987)
- Simu Liub. 1989CNnot in their usual nameChinese-Canadian actor and author (born 1989)
- Dallas Liub. 2001USnot in their usual nameAmerican 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).
How to address them(machine-generated)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 23 sources across 13 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 1.2K | #21,507 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 1K | #24,572 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 636 | #33,782 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 84 | #8,276 |
| NL Netherlands | CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007) | 2007 | 41 | #34,992 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 16 | #43,070 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 10 | #44,532 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 8 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 8 | #154,543 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 5 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 5 | #200,714 |
| 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 Liew come from?
- probably a variant of Liu 1. This spelling is found mainly in Malaysia. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- How do you pronounce Liew?
- A machine transcription gives /liəw/ (IPA) for Malay.
- What does the name Liew mean?
- Recorded meaning: probably a variant of Liu 1.
- In which country does Liew have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 1.0 thousand people named Liew, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled liew.
- Where is Liew most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Liew is densest in Sweden — about 1 in 121 thousand people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Liew?
- In the United States, the national register counted 1,017 people named Liew in 2010, about 1 in 327 thousand residents.
- How common is Liew compared with other names?
- In Singapore, Liew is the 118th most common surname of 78,292 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Liew?
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/liewThe 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, “Liew” — the 118th most common surname in Singapore. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.