Cui (surname)

Cui (Chinese: 崔; pinyin: Cuī; Wade–Giles: Ts'ui), alternatively spelled Tsui or Tsway, is one of the 80 most common surnames in China, with around 0.28% of the Chinese population having the surname (around 3.4 million in 2002).^[1] It is also one of the most common surnames in Korea, with around 4.7% of the population having the surname in South Korea (2.4 million in 2013).^[2]

In China, Cui is commonly found in Shandong and Henan, as well as provinces in the northeast and other areas of China, such as Heilongjiang, Liaoning, Hebei, Jiangsu, Shanxi, and Jilin.^[1] It is romanized as Chui in Hong Kong and Macao (Cantonese), Choi in Macao (Cantonese) and Malaysia, Choi in Korean, Thôi in Vietnamese and Tsoi in Cyrillic.

Unrelated to the Chinese surname, Cui was also used by Russian composer César Cui as the romanization of the Russian name Це́зарь Кюи́ (Tsézar' Kyuí). In his case, the surname originated as a Russification of the French surname Queuille.