Ji
A short surname found in several East Asian traditions, especially Chinese and Korean, with different characters and meanings behind the same Roman spelling.
The #8,216 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 76,441 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Ji is a romanized surname form that can reflect more than one East Asian family name. In Chinese, it may represent several different surnames written with different characters, each with its own meaning and history; in Korean, it can represent the surname 지 (Ji), likewise written with a specific character in formal use. Because the same Latin spelling can hide multiple original forms, there is no single literal meaning for all families named Ji.
History
As a Roman-letter surname, Ji became especially visible through modern passport and immigration spellings, where different original surnames were reduced to the same short form. In the United States it is relatively uncommon but has grown through immigration from Chinese- and Korean-speaking communities. Because several unrelated surnames can appear as Ji, family history usually has to be traced back to the original script to identify the right line.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
The same four letters can represent different surnames with different characters and meanings, so two people named Ji may have entirely separate family origins.