Wei
given name · Latin script
Meaning: An ancient Chinese march during the Zhou dynasty (kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations))
Used for both men and women· registers list it under both sexes; no split published
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 36 countries · latest register: Census Bureau, 2020
/wəi/(machine-generated) Malay · model-generated
Wei is a given name used for both men and women, written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- CNChina≈1 in 130(inferred from the name graph)
- TWTaiwan≈1 in 190
- MYMalaysia≈1 in 360
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Countries with no figure are shown too: flat where a national register lists the name without counting it, hatched where only our records hold it. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- Record sources
- 389 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 133 (inferred from the name graph)
≈11,000,000 people, est.
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
China, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
How to pronounce Wei
- Malay:/wəi/(machine-generated) model-generated
Readings marked model-generated were transcribed by a model; the others are quoted from the dictionary named.
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)An ancient Chinese march during the Zhou dynasty
Cited for this meaning 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 4 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Wei 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 | — | ≈11,000,000 est. | ≈1 in 133 | — | Wei | 202 |
| TW Taiwan | #310 | ≈120,000 est. | ≈1 in 190 | — | Wei | 166 |
| MY Malaysia | #177 | ≈99,000 est. | ≈1 in 359 | — | Wei | 123 |
| US United States | — | 17,173 | 1 in 19K | 15K | Wei | 389 |
| SG Singapore | #167 | ≈6,800 est. | ≈1 in 894 | — | Wei | 143 |
| HK Hong Kong | #111 | ≈3,400 est. | ≈1 in 2.2K | — | Wei | 87 |
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. 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)Wei 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.
‘Impressive might’.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
‘Greatness’.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In cdo, Occurs ifl the names of several strestms ； a small branch of the Han in K'aiteng fu, Honan, at which there was ft ford. ( Wealth, riches ； cloths riud silks, as constituting ■ others, specifically to bribe; bribes, hush-money : song* to make presents, as a bribe;
as a wordAn Alphabetic Dictionary of the Chinese Language in the Foochow Dialect
In cdo, wr. wf. A large sedge, a reed, a rush : \lu (Toi, sedge, grass Wei nt»ed for tying things ； * 、ek、 Hoi Jiong fihi, crossed (tbe stream) on one reed. Also read , ; grass, plants, herbs ； a surname : Wei also read 、mmg, q. v.
as a wordAn Alphabetic Dictionary of the Chinese Language in the Foochow Dialect
In cdo, A low thorny tree or ^jQ^ hmky producing fcnit like an ear-pendant; a hazel- nut or filbert ？ ( I ■ A g-e n e r a*l term for plants ； herbsy plants, 1^1 i herbs aod trees, plants.
as a wordAn Alphabetic Dictionary of the Chinese Language in the Foochow 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)- Du Weib. 1962CNAmbassador of China to Israel, Ambassador of China to Ukraine
- Zhao Weib. 1976CNChinese actress, singer and filmmaker (born 1976)
- Jon M. Chub. 1979USnot in their usual nameAmerican filmmaker
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)71 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 36 countries.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Wei mean, and where does it come from?
- An ancient Chinese march during the Zhou dynasty Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Wei?
- In Malay /wəi/. Transcriptions are machine-generated except where a dictionary is named.
- Is Wei a male or female name?
- Wei is used for both men and women. National registers that list it by sex count it under both: United States (Census Bureau, 2020), Spain (INE), Finland (DVV) and Norway (SSB), among others. We don't publish a percentage split.
- Which countries have the most people named Wei?
- Mondonomo estimates about 11 million people named Wei in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled wei. After it come Taiwan, Malaysia, United States and Singapore; the country table on this page ranks them.
- How common is the name Wei?
- In the United States, the national register counted 17,173 people named Wei in 2020, about 1 in 19 thousand residents.
- How common is Wei compared with other names?
- In Hong Kong, Wei is the 111th most common given name of 23,276 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Wei?
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/weiThe 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, “Wei” — the 111th most common given name in Hong Kong. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.