Ji (surname 季)
Chinese family name (季)
Jì is the Mandarin pinyin romanization of the Chinese surname written 季 in Chinese character. It is romanized as Chi in Wade–Giles, and Gwai in Cantonese. Ji is the 142nd most common surname in China, with a population of 960,000. It is listed the 134th in the Song dynasty classic text Hundred Family Surnames.
Etymology
In ancient usage, the characters of meng (孟), zhong (仲), shu (叔) and ji (季) were used to denote the first, second, third and fourth eldest sons in a family. The Chinese character Ji 季 is composed of two parts: 禾 (grain) and 子 (son), and originally means "young grain". Later it acquired the meaning of "the youngest", and was frequently used in the name or title of the youngest son (or daughter) of a family. It is from this usage that the character became a surname. According to analysis based on the early 11th-century dictionary Guangyun, in Middle Chinese the character was pronounced [kwi].
Demographics
As of 2008, Ji 季 is the 142nd most common surname in China, shared by 960,000 people, or 0.077% of the Chinese population.
“Ji (surname 季)” enters the record as chinese family name (季). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what surname, Chinese and family can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Ji (surname 季)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, surname, Chinese and family provides the most credible route into that argument.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 12, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q10945273. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2008.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ji (surname 季)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.