Ni
A short surname found in several cultures, most commonly as a Chinese family name.
The #7,217 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 66,770 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Ni is a very short surname that can arise in more than one naming tradition, so its origin is not singular. In Chinese, Ni is a common Romanization of several different surnames written with different characters, including 倪 and 聶/聂 in some systems and contexts, each with its own older meaning and history. In Irish and other European records, Ni can also appear as a shortened or anglicized form related to longer Gaelic names or as a particle in Gaelic naming, though that is less likely as a fixed hereditary surname in modern U.S. use.
History
In the United States, Ni is most often associated with recent immigration and Romanized East Asian surnames, especially Chinese. Because the spelling is so short, it can reflect multiple unrelated family lines rather than one shared ancestry. The name is also encountered in other languages and may be written or expanded differently in original scripts.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Because it is only two letters long, Ni can represent several distinct surnames that look identical in Roman letters but are unrelated in origin.