Lui (surname)

Lui may be the spelling of various Chinese surnames, based on their pronunciation in different varieties of Chinese; they are listed below by their spelling in Hanyu Pinyin, which reflects the Mandarin Chinese pronunciation:^[1]

• Léi (Chinese: 雷), meaning "thunder"; the spelling Lui is based on the Cantonese pronunciation (Jyutping: Leoi4; Cantonese Yale: Lèuih). The spelling Lui is common in Hong Kong, while other spellings of the same surname such as Loi and Louie are found in Macau and among overseas Chinese.
• Lǚ (traditional Chinese: 呂; simplified Chinese: 吕); nearly-homophonous with the above in Cantonese (Jyutping: Leoi5; Cantonese Yale: Léuih; note the differing tone), and so also spelled Lui, Loi, or Louie.

Lui is also an Italian surname, derived from the name of the month of July in the Eastern Lombard dialect spoken in Mantua and surroundings (compare Italian luglio).^[2]

In Italy, 287 families bore the surname Lui, with 200 (69.7%) located in Lombardy.^[3]

According to statistics cited by Patrick Hanks, there were 488 people on the island of Great Britain and 18 on the island of Ireland with the surname Lui as of 2011. There were no people with the surname on the island of Great Britain in 1881.^[1]

The 2010 United States census found 6,156 people with the surname Lui, making it the 5,641st-most-common name in the country. This represented an increase from 5,620 (5,662nd-most-common) in the 2000 Census. In both censuses, about nine-tenths of the bearers of the surname identified as Asian, and roughly five per cent as White.^[4] It was the 216th-most-common surname among respondents to the 2000 Census who identified as Asian.^[5]