Mui
A rare surname that is most likely a short transliteration of a Chinese family name, especially in older Romanization systems.
The #8,743 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 82,288 Americans shares it.
Etymology
In modern surname use, Mui is most plausibly a Romanized form of a Chinese surname written with different characters depending on dialect and transcription system. In English-language records it may reflect Cantonese- or other southern-Chinese pronunciations rather than one fixed Mandarin spelling. Because several unrelated Chinese surnames can be rendered this way, the exact literal meaning cannot be pinned down from the spelling alone.
History
The name appears in English-language records as an immigrant surname in communities shaped by Chinese migration and older Romanization practices. In many cases, surnames of this form were standardized only after families moved between dialect areas, countries, and alphabet systems. The same written form may therefore represent more than one original Chinese surname line.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
In older Western records, the same Chinese surname could be spelled several different ways even within one family, depending on who was writing it down.
From the historical record
“j,a,a,oi mui «,locolnX , , .Jttt Rid, Cnan Dir., 9, 1, 1^ 1, 0: Boatoa (U.S.), Gammella, 6; HiiUdelphia, 91, o, r, o, I. Oaiabliitg.a amlln, acuulan .”
— A Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames, with special American instances