Sim
surname · Latin script
Meaning: from the medieval male personal name Sim, a shortened form of Simon
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/sɪm/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Sim is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In South Korea it is the 28th most common surname.
- SGSingapore≈1 in 622(inferred from the name graph)
- MYMalaysia≈1 in 845
- KRSouth Korea1 in 191as 심
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Sim itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- #647 (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 552 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 622 (inferred from the name graph)
≈510,000 named Sims, est.
of 19M surnames
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Singapore, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Sims in US United States, GB United Kingdom, MY Malaysia and 2 more and 심 in KR South Korea, MO Macao.
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 medieval male personal name Sim, a shortened form of Simon
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 14 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Sim 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 | — | ≈510,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.7K | — | Sims | 18 |
| KR South Korea | #28 | 272,049as 심 | 1 in 191 | 283K | 심 | 153 |
| US United States | #231 | 113,374as Sims | 1 in 2.9K | 113K | Sims | 552 |
| MY Malaysia | #898 | ≈39,000 est. | ≈1 in 845 | — | Sims | 28 |
| GB United Kingdom | #325 | ≈19,000 est. | ≈1 in 3.5K | 16K | Sims | 246 |
| KP North Korea | #78 | ≈11,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.3K | — | Sim | 27 |
| SG Singapore | #301 | ≈10,000 est. | ≈1 in 622 | — | Sims | 32 |
| MO Macao | #56 | ≈660 est. | ≈1 in 930 | — | 심 | 5 |
| BR Brazil | — | 283 | 1 in 748K | 283 | — | 2 |
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; KOSIS 2015 Census — surname population with hanja variants; KOSIS — 2015 census surnames; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname). 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)
Sim 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 English, Diminutive of Simon/Simeon; earliest surname form mostly Sym, with John Sym de Banchry in 1503.
as a nameScottish Surnames
In English, pet-form of Simmond or Sime, ultimately from Simon; first attested Ralph Simme 1317 AssK.
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
Short form of Simon, now rare, but more common in the Middle Ages, when it gave rise to the surnames Simms and Simpson. Sindy ? Variant spelling of Cindy that came into use in about 1950 and is most common in America. Sine ° Irish Gaelic form of Jane, pronounced ‘shee-na’, derived from Anglo-Norman Jeanne. Variant: Sheena (Anglicized).
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In English, Clipping of simulation.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In French, Diminutif de Simon ou Siméon.
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
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)
- Shen Kuob. 1031CNnot in their usual nameChinese scientist and statesman (1031-1095)
- Mao Dunb. 1896CNnot in their usual nameChinese writer (1896-1981)
- Alastair Simb. 1900GBScottish actor (1900–1976)
- Shen Congwenb. 1902CNnot in their usual nameChinese writer (1902–1988)
- Sheila Simb. 1922GBBritish actress (1922–2016)
- Freda Foh Shenb. 1948USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress
- Shim Hyung-raeb. 1958KRnot in their usual nameSouth Korean film director
- Shim Eun-hab. 1972KRnot in their usual nameSouth Korean actress
- Changminb. 1988KRnot in their usual nameSouth Korean singer; member of boy band TVXQ, born 1988
- 심은경b. 1994KRnot in their usual nameSouth Korean 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).
How to address them(machine-generated)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 51 sources across 26 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| KR South Korea | KOSIS — 2015 census surnames | 2015 | 283K | #32 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 6.4K | #5,257 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 6K | #5,732 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 4.9K | #6,376 |
| GB United Kingdom | Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register) | 2002 | 2.9K | #2,656 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 283 | #27,768 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 6
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- 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 Sim mean, and where does it come from?
- from the medieval male personal name Sim, a shortened form of Simon Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- How do you pronounce Sim?
- A machine transcription gives /sɪm/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Sim have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 514 thousand people named Sims in China, more than in any other country we hold.
- How common is the name Sim?
- In Brazil, the national register counted 283 people named Sim, about 1 in 748 thousand residents.
- How common is Sim compared with other names?
- In South Korea, Sim is the 28th most common surname of 14,133 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Sim?
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/simThe 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, “Sim” — the 28th most common surname in South Korea. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.