Uy
A short surname found in East and Southeast Asian communities, most often associated with Chinese or Hokkien-style family-name forms.
The #9,003 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 84,984 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Uy is a brief surname form that is often tied to Chinese surnames as they were written in Southeast Asian languages and in Spanish-era records, especially among Hokkien-speaking families. In some cases it may reflect a local rendering of a Chinese surname whose pronunciation was adapted to regional spelling customs rather than a single, fixed root spelling. Because it is so short and can represent more than one source tradition, its literal origin is not certain without a specific family history.
History
The surname is especially familiar in the Philippines and among diaspora communities with Chinese ancestry, where very short spellings often preserve older romanization habits. In records, forms like Uy can arise from the same family line being written in different ways across languages and administrations. As a result, the name is best understood as a transliterated family-name form rather than a surname with one universal European-style etymology.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Because Uy is so compact, it can look like an abbreviation in English, but in surname records it is usually a full inherited family name.