Looi

Looi is a surname.

Origins

Like many other similarly-spelled surnames, it can originate from either of two Chinese surnames which are almost homophonous in Cantonese, though pronounced distinctly in Mandarin:

Léi, meaning "thunder". The spelling Looi might also originate from its pronunciation in various Southern Min dialects, e.g. Hokkien or Chaoshan.
Lǚ, a toponymic surname from the ancient state of Lü. The pronunciation in other varieties of Chinese is not similar to the surname meaning "thunder".

As a Dutch surname, Looi originated both as shortened version of van de Looi with the tussenvoegsels dropped, and as a patronymic surname derived from the given name Looi. That given name is a regional hypocorism of various other given names: it may be short for Ludolf, or for Lodewijk in Groningen and the southern Netherlands, or for Eligius in Friesland. Alternative spellings include Looij.

Statistics

In the Netherlands, there were nine people with the surname Looi and 35 people with the surname van de Looi as of 2007, up from three and nine respectively in 1947.

People

People with the surname Looi include:

Looi Loon Teik, Malaysian footballer
Beatrice Looi, Malaysian bridal gown designer

People with the surname van de Looi include: