Li

Li is the 154th most common surname in the United States, shared by 165,790 people at the 2020 census. That is about one person in 1,803.

By the numbers

People: 165,790
Rank: 154th
How common: 1 in 1,803
Per 100,000: 55.5

Where the name comes from

Origin Chinese

Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Who bears the name

How people with the surname Li described their own race and Hispanic origin at the 2020 census:

Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 96.0%
White, not Hispanic 2.2%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 0.9%
Hispanic or Latino 0.5%
Black, not Hispanic 0.5%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.02%

Notable people called Li

Li Bai (701–762)Classical Chinese poet of the Tang dynasty
Jet Li (born 1963)Chinese-Singaporean martial artist and actor
Li Keqiang (1955–2023)Premier of the People's Republic of China from 2013 to 2023
Gong Li (born 1965)Chinese-Singaporean actress
Li Na (born 1982)Chinese tennis player
Li Wenliang (1985–2020)Chinese ophthalmologist known for warning about the coronavirus in December 2019
Li Qiang (born 1959)Premier of the People's Republic of China since 2023
Li Peng (1928–2019)4th Premier of the People's Republic of China

People named Li with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).

Surnames like Li

Try it on yourself

Source: US Census Bureau, Frequently Occurring Surnames, 2020. The Census describes the file as the surnames borne by 100 or more people; rarer names are not published. The line is not quite exact, and 617 published names come in under it, the smallest at 92 people. Race and Hispanic origin are self-reported. Rates are worked out against the 298.9 million people the file's own figures are calculated on, which is fewer than the census counted in all: the difference is everyone whose surname was too rare to publish.