Yi

At the 2020 census, 19,112 Americans bore the surname Yi — 1,844th out of 156,621 surnames on file. That is about one person in 15,600.

By the numbers

People: 19,112
Rank: 1,844th
How common: 1 in 15,600
Per 100,000: 6.4

Where the name comes from

Origin Korean

Borrowed from Korean ^이, hanja: 李, also spelled ^리, especially in North Korea.

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

Who bears the name

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

Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 92.4%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 2.9%
White, not Hispanic 2.3%
Hispanic or Latino 2.0%
Black, not Hispanic 0.4%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.02%

Notable people called Yi

Wang Yi (born 1953)Chinese diplomat leader, Director of the CCP Central Foreign Affairs Commission Office since 2023
Wu Yi (born 1938)Vice Premier of China
Chen Yi (1901–1972)Chinese military officer, People's Republic of China
Sima Yi (179–251)Chinese general, politician and regent
Wei Yi (born 1999)Chinese chess player
Yi Jianlian (born 1987)Chinese basketball player
Di Yi (1200 BC–1075 BC)30th king of Shang dynasty (r. ca. 1101 BCE-1076 BCE)
Jia Yi (199 BC–167 BC)Chinese poet

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

Surnames like Yi

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.