Mui

Name: Mui: recorded bearers, distribution and rank
Creator: Mondonomo
Published: 2026-10-13
License: https://mondonomo.ai/tos#rights

surname · Latin script

Meaning, in English: Chinese plum (kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations))

(measured from records)Officially recorded in 16 countries · latest register: Census Bureau, 2020

/mui/(machine-generated) Swahili · model-generated · uncertain

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Mui is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Vietnam than in any other country, where it is the 46th most common given name. Mui is also written ไหม in Thai.

HKHong Kong≈1 in 1.5K(inferred from the name graph)
MYMalaysia≈1 in 3.3K
SGSingapore≈1 in 8.3K

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 Mui 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.

: Vietnam (inferred from the name graph)
: 2 (measured from records)
Record sources: 405 (measured from records)
: ≈1 in 1.5K (inferred from the name graph)

measured from records inferred from the name graph

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Mui in other scripts: Latin and Thai

MaiMui in Latin

ไหมMui in Thai

7 other spellings are counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Mai in VN Vietnam, US United States, NG Nigeria and 2 more.

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.

How to pronounce Mui

Swahili:/mui/(machine-generated) model-generated
Malay:/mui/(machine-generated) model-generated

Readings marked model-generated were transcribed by a model; the others are quoted from the dictionary named.

Meaning & origin

covering roof (for car, boat, etc.); hood

Cited for this meaning 1

kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.

How Mui is read

Mui is one spelling over 4 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.

English52%
Chinese plum
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Swahili12%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Mui in Swahili.
Malay8.8%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Mui in Malay.
Chinese7.7%
variant of Mel
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
unexplained.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

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

Mui 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 Mui is recorded, by country
Country					Most common spelling	Sources
VN Vietnam	#46	≈730,000 est.	≈1 in 138	listed	Mai	226
US United States	—	20,650as Mai	1 in 16K	21K	Mai	405
IN India	—	≈14,000 est.	≈1 in 101K	368	Mai	44
NG Nigeria	—	≈14,000 est.	≈1 in 16K	—	Mai	37
MY Malaysia	—	≈11,000 est.	≈1 in 3.3K	—	Mui	52
HK Hong Kong	#829	≈5,000 est.	≈1 in 1.5K	—	Mui	65
DK Denmark	—	2,282as Mai	1 in 2.6K	2.3K	—	5
AG Antigua & Barbuda	#61	≈34 est.	≈1 in 2.7K	—	Mai	1

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; Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls. 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

Mui is also recorded as 7 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

Malay surname6 spellings in the group
Most recorded in Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, United States
Languages: Malay, Indonesian
Also written Mu'I, Mụi, Mũi
Swahili surname4 spellings in the group
Most recorded in United States, Kenya, Canada, Malaysia
Also written Mụi
a separate surname15 spellings in the group
Most recorded in United States, Malaysia, United Kingdom, India
Also written Mūî, Mùi, Mųi, Mưi, Múi
Spanish surname6 spellings in the group
Most recorded in United States, France, Venezuela, Argentina
Languages: Spanish, French
Also written Mùi, Mũi, Mûi, Mụi
a separate name4 spellings in the group
Also written Múi, Mùi, Muī
Hindi surname3 spellings in the group
Most recorded in India, United States, Malaysia, Singapore
Languages: Hindi, Urdu
Also written Mụi
Malay given name13 spellings in the group
Most recorded in Malaysia, United States, Singapore, Indonesia
Languages: Malay, Hungarian, Korean
Also written Mooi, 무이, Mdi, Mouy, MuAy

51 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

Mui is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

In Vietnamese, covering roof (for car, boat, etc.); hood
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Tongan, place or space behind or further back; rear; background; end, extremity, tip; back, rear, hind; later; young, immature, only partly grown or developed (as yet)
as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0
In niu, the last; be last, follow; unripe, immature
as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0

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

Mei Lanfangb. 1894CNnot in their usual namePeking opera artist (1894-1961)
Mei Ju-aob. 1904CNnot in their usual nameChinese jurist, professor, politician, and author (1904-1973)
Anita Muib. 1963CNHong Kong singer and actress (1963–2003)

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

FormalDear Ms Mui,

InformalHi Mui,

Evidence

33 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 16 countries.

Frequently asked questions

Where does the name Mui come from?: covering roof (for car, boat, etc.); hood Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
How do you pronounce Mui?: It depends on the language: in Swahili /mui/; in Malay /mui/. Transcriptions are machine-generated except where a dictionary is named.
What does the name Mui mean?: In English, Chinese plum
Which countries have the most people named Mui?: Mondonomo estimates about 732 thousand people named Mai in Vietnam, more than in any other country we hold. After it come United States, India, Nigeria and Malaysia; the country table on this page ranks them.
How common is the name Mui?: In the United States, the national register counted 20,650 people named Mai in 2020, about 1 in 16 thousand residents.
How common is Mui compared with other names?: In Vietnam, Mui is the 46th most common given name of 73,918 given names recorded there.

What do you want to know about Mui?

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/mui

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 2026-10-13 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, “Mui” — the 46th most common given name in Vietnam. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.

See how Mui parses inside a full name →