Ming
given name · English · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Ming is a given name, most frequently recorded in Malaysia. In Hong Kong it is the 58th most common given name. It appears chiefly in English and Chinese, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: from the name of Meng Mingshi, a senior minister of the state of Qin in the Spring and Autumn period (722^81 Bc).
- HKHong Kong1 in 1.2K◐
- MYMalaysia1 in 3K
- SGSingapore1 in 4.6K
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈6.9K ●
- Sources
- 296 ●
- 1 in 27K ◐
across 9 countries
216K records
Official registry-verified
Sweden
Meaning & origin●
from the name of Meng Mingshi, a senior minister of the state of Qin in the Spring and Autumn period (722^81 Bc). His descendants adopted the first character of his given name, which means ‘bright’, as their surname.
Sources 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested across 5 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world●
Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MY Malaysia | #178 | 21,979 | 27K rec. | — | — | Ming | 95 |
| AU Australia | #656 | 18,855 | 19K rec. | — | 2 | Ming | 160 |
| US United States | — | 6,059 | 139K rec. | 1 in 55K | 6.1K | Ming | 296 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | 5,496 | 7.2K rec. | — | — | Ming | 100 |
| CA Canada | — | 3,631 | 4.3K rec. | — | 1 | Ming | 100 |
| HK Hong Kong | #58 | 3,119 | 1.9K rec. | — | — | Ming | 97 |
| NL Netherlands | — | 2,601 | 2.2K rec. | — | 101 | Ming | 32 |
| CN China | — | 2,457 | 1.2K rec. | — | — | Ming | 83 |
| SG Singapore | #266 | 2,324 | 3.1K rec. | — | — | Ming | 103 |
| DE Germany | — | 1,871 | 2.1K rec. | — | — | Ming | 87 |
| NZ New Zealand | #421 | 749 | 819 rec. | — | — | Ming | 38 |
| SE Sweden | — | 374△ | 55 rec. | 1 in 27K | 374 | — | 12 |
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.
Languages●
- English167K37%
- Chinese148K33%
- Malay42K9%
- 22K5%
- Spanish16K3%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| English | 166,883 | 37% |
| Chinese | 147,625 | 33% |
| Malay | 41,804 | 9% |
| 22,037 | 5% | |
| Spanish | 15,629 | 3% |
Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.
Other recorded senses●
Ming is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, of uncertain origin; possibly from a reduced form of the personal name Dominick.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In Chinese, nonstandard spelling of míng
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, To mix, blend, mingle.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, Chinese dynasty
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In wuu, Inscription
as a wordAn English-Chinese Vocabulary of the Shanghai Dialect
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Over time●
Show as table
| Year | records |
|---|---|
| 1920 | 5 |
| 1966 | 6 |
| 1968 | 5 |
| 1969 | 6 |
| 1970 | 5 |
| 1971 | 5 |
| 1972 | 5 |
| 1974 | 6 |
| 1975 | 8 |
| 1976 | 5 |
| 1978 | 5 |
| 1979 | 9 |
| 1980 | 7 |
| 1981 | 14 |
| 1982 | 10 |
| 1983 | 12 |
| 1984 | 7 |
| 1985 | 5 |
| 1987 | 8 |
| 1988 | 8 |
| 1989 | 6 |
| 1990 | 13 |
| 1991 | 7 |
| 1992 | 10 |
| 1993 | 9 |
| 1994 | 6 |
| 1995 | 8 |
| 1996 | 6 |
| 1997 | 5 |
| 1998 | 8 |
| 1999 | 10 |
| 2000 | 12 |
| 2001 | 8 |
| 2002 | 8 |
| 2003 | 9 |
| 2004 | 9 |
| 2005 | 11 |
| 2006 | 8 |
| 2007 | 9 |
| 2008 | 7 |
| 2009 | 5 |
| 2010 | 7 |
| 2011 | 5 |
| 2012 | 5 |
| 2013 | 7 |
| 2014 | 5 |
| 2015 | 8 |
| 2017 | 6 |
| 2020 | 7 |
| 2022 | 6 |
| 2024 | 8 |
US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 51 years between 1920–2024. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.
Notable people with this name●
- Sophia Leungb. 1933CAnot in their usual nameCanadian politician
- Ming Fayb. 1943USChinese-born American sculptor (1943–2025)
- Zhang Mingb. 1961CNChinese director
- Cai Mingb. 1961CNChinese singer and actress
- Ming C. Linb. 1965USAmerican computer scientist
- Leon Laib. 1966CNnot in their usual nameHong Kong singer and actor
- Woo Ming Jinb. 1976MYMalaysian film director, writer and producer
- Yao Mingb. 1980CNChinese basketball player (born 1980)
- Ming Marajb. 2006USsister of Nicki Minaj
- Meng FoonNZnot in their usual namemayor of Gisborne, New Zealand, and rugby league administrator
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
Evidence●
Attested in 63 sources across 32 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 6.1K | #2,543 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 4.4K | #6,968 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 3.8K | #8,718 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 3.5K | #2,543 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 3.3K | #9,499 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 750 | #1,644 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 374 | #3,378 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 216 | #8,525 |
| ES Spain | INE — Nombres más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 202 | #4,153 |
| ES Spain | INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 162 | #19,368 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 162 | #19,287 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 162 | #3,921 |
Reference works 5
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 386 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Ming?
- We estimate roughly 6.9 thousand people bear Ming (counting its spellings and scripts) across 9 countries in our records.
- In which country does Ming have the most bearers?
- Ming is most frequently recorded in Malaysia, where it is most often spelled ming.
- How common is Ming compared with other names?
- In Malaysia, Ming is the 178th most common given name of 325,158 given names recorded there.
- Is Ming a male or female name?
- Ming is recorded for both men and women. We don't publish a percentage split: a record's gender belongs to the person and is attached to every given name on that record, so names in cultures where a name string also carries a parent's or spouse's given name pick up large cross-gender counts.
- What does the name Ming mean?
- Recorded meaning: from the name of Meng Mingshi, a senior minister of the state of Qin in the Spring and Autumn period (722^81 Bc).
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/mingThe same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use. Bulk access and licensing.
About this data
Data snapshot . Figures are rebuilt periodically and will change.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Ming” — the 178th most common given name in Malaysia. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.