The Li surname (李)
Li (李, Lǐ) is about 93 million people in mainland China (2013), the 2nd most common surname; the province with the most Lis is Henan.
How do you pronounce the surname 李?
As a surname, 李 is pronounced Lǐ in Mandarin (written Li without tone marks).
How is Li written in Chinese?
It is written 李 in both simplified and traditional Chinese.
How common is the Li surname?
According to Yuan Yida and Qiu Jiaru's study of the 400 most common Chinese surnames (2013), about 93 million people in mainland China are named Li — 7.00% of the population, ranking 2nd.
In the Ministry of Public Security's 2020 national name report (household registration), Li ranks 2nd.
Where in China is the Li surname most common?
According to the same 2013 study, the province with the most people named Li is Henan.
Is Li in the Hundred Family Surnames?
Yes — 李 is number 4 in the Hundred Family Surnames (Baijiaxing), a Song-dynasty primer. Its order reflects the rhyme of the text, not population.
What are the other English spellings of Li?
The same Chinese surname is spelled differently by region and era — check all of them when searching immigration or overseas records:
- Hanyu Pinyin (Mainland China): Li
- Wade–Giles (Taiwan, older usage): Li
- Cantonese (Hong Kong, overseas): Lee, Li; Jyutping lei5
- Hokkien / Minnan: Lí
- Vietnamese: Lý
How do I build a Li family tree?
Start with your own branch: record the ancestors you are sure of, then parents, siblings and descendants, generation by generation, with dates, spouses, migrations and burial places. Then invite relatives to fill in their own branches.
The KinTraces genealogy workbench lets a family build a Li genealogy together online — relatives claim their own entries, adoptions and dual heirship are recorded on both sides, every change is logged, and the tree can be printed as a traditional Chinese genealogy (vertical register, Su or Ou style, pagoda chart) or a Western Register / Pedigree, or exported as GEDCOM.
What are Li generation names (zibei)?
Many Chinese lineages share a generation poem: each generation takes one character from it in their given names, so cousins of the same generation share a character. Different Li branches use different poems — there can be dozens for one surname — so a poem from another branch cannot simply be borrowed.
The most reliable source is your branch's own genealogy; otherwise, collect names from elders, gravestones and ancestral halls, look for the shared character in each generation, and compare with genealogies from the same ancestral place.
Surnames ranked nearby
Other common surnames in Henan
Sources: 2013 population figures, ranks and top provinces from Yuan Yida and Qiu Jiaru, The 400 Most Common Chinese Surnames (2013), as compiled in the English Wikipedia article "List of common Chinese surnames" (CC BY-SA 4.0); 2020 ranks from the Ministry of Public Security's 2020 national name report; Baijiaxing order from the Wikisource text.