Explore the Family Name Shui

The meaning of Shui

Chinese: 1. Mandarin or Cantonese form of the surname 水, meaning ‘water’ in Chinese: acquired as a surname by people who lived near a place with plenty of water, for example a river or a lake. 2. Mandarin or Cantonese form of the surname 稅, meaning ‘tax’ in Chinese: from Shui (稅), the name of an ancient state (mainly located in Sichuan province). 3. variant Romanization of the surname 徐, possibly based on its Hokkien pronunciation, see Xu 2.

Dictionary of American Family Names, 2nd edition, © Oxford University Press, 2022.

How common is the last name Shui in the United States?

Based on the Decennial U.S. Census data, the popularity of the surname Shui has seen a slight decline in rank from 76,700 in 2000 to 78,316 in 2010, marking a change of -2.11%. However, the actual count of individuals with this surname increased from 233 in 2000 to 244 in 2010, indicating a growth rate of 4.72%. Despite this increase, the proportion of the population bearing the Shui surname per 100k dropped by 11.11% from 0.09 in 2000 to 0.08 in 2010.

	2000	2010	Change
Rank	#76,700	#78,316	-2.11%
Count	233	244	4.72%
Proportion per 100k	0.09	0.08	-11.11%

Race and Ethnicity of people with the last name Shui

The ethnicity associated with the surname Shui, according to the Decennial U.S. Census, is predominantly Asian/Pacific Islander, accounting for 98.28% in 2000 and slightly decreasing to 95.90% in 2010. There was no recorded change in the percentage of Shui's identifying as having two or more races, White, Hispanic, Black, or American Indian and Alaskan Native between these years. This indicates that the ethnic identity tied with the surname Shui has remained relatively stable over this decade.

	2000	2010	Change
Asian/Pacific Islander	98.28%	95.9%	-2.42%
Two or More Races	0%	0%	0%
White	0%	0%	0%
Hispanic	0%	0%	0%
Black	0%	0%	0%
American Indian and Alaskan Native	0%	0%	0%