Či

surname · Latin script

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

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

rarermore common
  • ITItaly≈1 in 66K(inferred from the name graph)
  • USUnited States1 in 46Kas Chi
  • LTLithuania≈1 in 22K

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 Či 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.

United States (measured from records)

7,273 named Chi, 2010

3 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
141 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 22K (inferred from the name graph)

Lithuania, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

ČiLatin(measured from records)
ЦиCyrillic(measured from records)
צהHebrew(measured from records)

One other spelling is counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Ci in US United States, IT Italy, ES Spain, Ци in CN China and Çi in DE Germany.

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)

recorded in Korean

姓 , 见 《 姓 苑 》(7,21,62) 。 居 于 刺 门 者 以 为 氏 , 见 张 潮 4 姓氏 五 书 注 》(62 ) 。

Sources 4

  • Digital Pāḷi Dictionary
  • Chinese Surnames Encyclopedia (Section 2)
  • Schuessler, ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese (2007)
  • Skok, Etimologijski rječnik hrvatskoga ili srpskoga jezika (1971-74)

Attested across 26 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Či 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 Či is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States7,273as Chi1 in 46K8.5KCi141
CN China≈6,900 est.≈1 in 202K—Ци18
IT Italy≈940 est.≈1 in 66K1Ci35
DE Germany≈690 est.≈1 in 116K—Çi39
ES Spain398as Qi1 in 126K398Ci26
LT Lithuania≈120 est.≈1 in 22K—Či6
FI Finland117as Qi1 in 48K269—1
NO Norway50as Chi1 in 109K194—1

7,273 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010, counting the spelling chi. 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; ISTAT — Contanomi newborn per-name series (1999–2024, JSONP backend); INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population). 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)

Či is also recorded as another name, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • a separate name8 spellings in the group

    Also written Ći, Cí, Cî, Ci, Cī

3 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)

Či is also recorded in 6 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In qfa-yen-pro, to pluck, tear out

    as a wordStarLing Tower of Babel etymological databases (Starostin et al.)

  • In xgn-pro, you (personal pronoun)

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

  • In sla-pro, if, whether

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

  • In zlw-ocs, whether, if

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

  • In Latvian, savienojumā "či, čī" lieto lai atdarinātu zīlītes balss skaņas

    as a wordTēzaurs.lv (Dictionary and Thesaurus of Latvian, AiLab / LU MII)

  • In Latvian, Ezoterismā vitāls spēks, kas izpaužas materiālajā pasaulē

    as a wordTēzaurs.lv (Dictionary and Thesaurus of Latvian, AiLab / LU MII)

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)

150016001700180019002000Deposed Crown Prince Yi Ji, b. 1598Zhang Qi, b. 1922Johnnie To, b. 1955Nita Ing, b. 1955Shu Kei, b. 1956Katherine Tai, b. 1974June Chan, b. 1974Li Qi, b. 1983Xiao Qi, b. 1996Samantha Yeo, b. 1997
  • Deposed Crown Prince Yi Jib. 1598KRnot in their usual nameKorean Crown Prince
  • Zhang Qib. 1922CNnot in their usual nameChinese physician (1922-2019)
  • Johnnie Tob. 1955CNnot in their usual nameHong Kong filmmaker (born 1955)
  • Nita Ingb. 1955TWnot in their usual nameTaiwanese businesswoman
  • Shu Keib. 1956CNnot in their usual nameHong Kong film director and screenwriter
  • Katherine Taib. 1974USnot in their usual nameAmerican attorney (born 1974)
  • June Chanb. 1974CNnot in their usual nameactress and model from Hong Kong
  • Li Qib. 1983CNnot in their usual nameChinese softball player
  • Xiao Qib. 1996CNnot in their usual nameChinese Go player
  • Samantha Yeob. 1997SGnot in their usual nameSingaporean swimmer

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 2 sources across 0 countries.

Reference works 2

  • Wikipedia given-name tokens
  • Wikipedia surname tokens

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

In which country does Či have the most bearers?
In the United States, the national register counted about 7.3 thousand people named Chi, more than in any other country we hold.
How common is the name Či?
In the United States, the national register counted 7,273 people named Chi in 2010, about 1 in 46 thousand residents.

What do you want to know about Či?

Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.

Please leave out anyone's personal details (see Privacy).

Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/%C4%8Di

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, “Či”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Či parses inside a full name →