Yi
Yi is a Chinese name carrying the sense of resolute and righteous, or simply benefit. In Poland it stays rare and genuinely unisex: around 150 people hold it, split close to evenly between women and men.
Yi Pronunciation
Yi is pronounced IH-ee (/ˈɨi/).
What Yi means
Where Yi comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Yi comes into Polish records as a Chinese given name. Its origin is filed simply as other, outside the Slavic and Latin roots behind most names on this site. In Mandarin the single sound yi answers to many written characters, and three of them carry the meanings given here. 義 stands for righteousness. 毅 means resolute, firm, unbending. 益 holds the sense of benefit, in Polish korzyść or zysk.
Because the romanization drops the tone and the character, the sound yi alone does not fix which meaning a person carries. One Yi may be the righteous one. Another may be the resolute one, or the one who brings gain. The written form decides.
On a Polish class register, Yi is one of the shortest first names on the page. There is no Polish diminutive to soften it, no cross-gender variant listed beside it. What the name means stays with the Chinese characters behind the sound, and each of them points somewhere firm: 毅 to resolve, 義 to righteousness, 益 to benefit.
How many people are named Yi
1 in 242570 men in Poland is named Yi. 150 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #2653 among male names.
Yi's popularity over time
Fewer than 2 boys were given the name in 2025. It has been stable for a decade.
Yi as a middle name
Yi is a first name for 150 men in Poland and a middle name for another 11, a 93/7 split. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 3031st, between Yashar (11) and Yilmaz (11).