Loi is a surname. It has various origins, including as a spelling of three

Chinese surname Chinese surnames are used by Han Chinese and Sinicized ethnic groups in China, Taiwan, Korea, Vietnam, and among overseas Chinese communities around the world such as Singapore and Malaysia. Written Chinese names begin with surnames, unlike the ...

s (), a traditional surname from Sardinia, and a surname in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

from the word ''

loi Loi is the word in the Meitei language (Meiteilon) for the term "scheduled caste". The term ''Loi'' is given to the indigenous and aboriginal people of Manipur in northeast India who refused to adopt Hinduism or were semi-Hinduised when the new ...

'' meaning "scheduled caste" in the

Meitei language Meitei (), also known as Manipuri (, ), is a Tibeto-Burman language of north-eastern India. It is spoken by around 1.8 million people, predominantly in the state of Manipur, but also by smaller communities in the rest of the country and in pa ...

Origins

Loi may be the spelling of three

s, based on their pronunciation in different

varieties of Chinese Chinese, also known as Sinitic, is a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family consisting of hundreds of local varieties, many of which are not mutually intelligible. Variation is particularly strong in the more mountainous southeast of main ...

; they are listed below by their spelling in

Hanyu Pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...

, which reflects the

Mandarin Chinese Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language of ...

pronunciation: * Léi (), meaning "thunder"; the spelling Loi is based on the

Cantonese Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding are ...

pronunciation (). The spelling Loi is common in

Macau Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a pop ...

, while other spellings of the same surname such as Lui and

Louie Louie may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Louie'' (American TV series), by comedian Louis C.K. * ''Louie'' (French TV series), animated series about a young rabbit who draws pictures which come to life * "Louie" (song), by Blood Raw * ''L ...

are found in

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

and among

overseas Chinese Overseas Chinese () refers to people of Chinese birth or ethnicity who reside outside Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. As of 2011, there were over 40.3 million overseas Chinese. Terminology () or ''Hoan-kheh'' () in Hokkien, refe ...

. * Lǚ (); nearly-homophonous with the above in Cantonese (; note the differing tone), and so also spelled Loi, Lui, or Louie. * Lí (), a

fossil word A fossil word is a word that is broadly wikt:obsolete#Adjective, obsolete but remains in current use due to its presence within an idiom, word sense, or phrase. An example for a word sense is 'navy' in 'merchant navy', which means 'commercial flee ...

meaning "black" or "brown". The spelling Loi is based on the pronunciation in various dialects of

Southern Min Southern Min (), Minnan (Mandarin pronunciation: ) or Banlam (), is a group of linguistically similar and historically related Sinitic languages that form a branch of Min Chinese spoken in Fujian (especially the Minnan region), most of Taiwan ( ...

(e.g. Teochew

Peng'im (: ( Teochew) (Swatow), : or , : or ) is a Teochew dialect romanisation system as a part of Guangdong Romanisation published by Guangdong Provincial Education Department in 1960. Tone of this system is based on Swatow dialect. The system ...

: ; IPA: ) The Chinese surname meaning "thunder" is spelled in

Vietnamese Vietnamese may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia ** A citizen of Vietnam. See Demographics of Vietnam. * Vietnamese people, or Kinh people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Vietnam ** Overse ...

as Lôi (, that being the Sino-Vietnamese pronunciation of the original Chinese character). Loi is also a surname found in

Manipur Manipur () ( mni, Kangleipak) is a state in Northeast India, with the city of Imphal as its capital. It is bounded by the Indian states of Nagaland to the north, Mizoram to the south and Assam to the west. It also borders two regions of Myanm ...

, from the word ''

'' meaning "scheduled caste" in the

. As an

Italian surname A name in the Italian language consists of a given name ( it, nome), and a surname (); in most contexts, the given name is written before the surname. (In official documents, the Western surname may be written before the given name or names.) Ital ...

, Loi appears to have originated as a shortened form of some given name, possibly the Sardinian Balloe, or the Sicilian Aloi (the local form of the name Eligio). Loi may also be a

Greek surname In the modern world, Greeks names are the personal names among people of Greek language and Greek culture, culture generally consist of a given name and a family name. History Ancient Greek personal names, Ancient Greeks generally had a single n ...

Statistics

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

, 2,716 families bore the surname Loi, with the great majority of them (2,061, 76%) located in

Sardinia Sardinia ( ; it, Sardegna, label=Italian, Corsican and Tabarchino ; sc, Sardigna , sdc, Sardhigna; french: Sardaigne; sdn, Saldigna; ca, Sardenya, label=Algherese and Catalan) is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after ...

, and only 10 (0.5%) located in

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

. According to statistics cited by

Patrick Hanks Patrick Hanks (born 24 March 1940) is an English lexicographer, corpus linguist, and onomastician. He has edited dictionaries of general language, as well as dictionaries of personal names. Background Hanks was educated at Ardingly College, ...

, there were 282 people on the island of

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...

and one on the island of

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

with the surname Loi as of 2011. There was one person with the surname Loi on the island of Great Britain in 1881. The

2010 United States Census The United States census of 2010 was the twenty-third United States national census. National Census Day, the reference day used for the census, was April 1, 2010. The census was taken via mail-in citizen self-reporting, with enumerators servin ...

found 1,357 people with the surname Loi, making it the 19,814th-most-common name in the country. This represented an increase from 985 (23,922nd-most-common) in the 2000 Census. In both censuses, slightly fewer than nine-tenths of the bearers of the surname identified as

Asian Asian may refer to: * Items from or related to the continent of Asia: ** Asian people, people in or descending from Asia ** Asian culture, the culture of the people from Asia ** Asian cuisine, food based on the style of food of the people from Asi ...

, and between six and eight per cent as

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White on ...

. It was the 1,056th-most-common surname among respondents to the 2000 Census who identified as Asian.

People

Francesco Loi Francesco Loi (February 21, 1891 – March 9, 1977) was an Italian gymnast who competed in the 1912 Summer Olympics and in the 1920 Summer Olympics. He was born in Cagliari Cagliari (, also , , ; sc, Casteddu ; lat, Caralis) is an Ita ...

(1891–1977), Italian gymnast from Cagliari, Sardinia * Loi Ah Koon (; ), Hainan-born founder of the Singapore-based Ya Kun Kaya Toast café chain *

Duilio Loi Duilio Loi (19 April 1929 – 20 January 2008) was an Italian Boxing, boxer who held the Italian and European lightweight and welterweight titles, as well as the World Junior Welterweight Championship. Loi fought from 1948 to 1962, and retired w ...

(1929–2008), Italian boxer * Franco Loi (1930–2021), Italian poet * Bruno Loi (born 1941), Italian Army lieutenant general * Maria Antonietta Loi (born 1973), Italian physicist from Cagliari, Sardinia * Loi Wai Long (; born 1989), Macau football defender * Cleo Loi (born ), Australian astrophysicist * Loi Wai Hong (; born 1992), Macau football defender * Antonio Loi (born 1996), Italian football midfielder from Isili, Sardinia *

Livio Loi Livio Loi (born 27 April 1997 in Hasselt) is a Belgian professional Grand Prix motorcycle racer. He competed in the Moto3 World Championship in and the first half of the season for the Marc VDS Racing Team, before being replaced by Jorge Navarr ...

(born 1997), Belgian motorcycle racer * Loi Im Lan (; born 1998), Macau sprinter * Sherene Loi, Australian oncologist

References

{{reflist Surnames Chinese-language surnames Multiple Chinese surnames Surnames of Italian origin Vietnamese-language surnames

Origins

Statistics

People

See also

References