Given name & surname
Sumi
“one who is elegant and refined”
Sumi is used as a given name and a surname. One Japanese interpretation is “one who is elegant and refined.”
Original Japaneseすみ
Meaning & origin
What it means
One Japanese interpretation is “one who is elegant and refined.”
Where it comes from
An origin associated with this spelling is Japanese.
The story
Published U.S. birth records include this spelling as early as 1916. This is the earliest published observation available here, rather than a date for the name’s origin.
From dated birth records
Sumi through the years
- Babies since 1880
- 211
- 0 boys · 211 girls
- Most popular year
- 1922
- 9 babies
- 2025
- 5
- #16,983 for girls
- 2021–25 vs 2016–20
- —
- Too few births to compare
By the numbers
In 2025, this name appeared in 5 U.S. birth records for girls, ranking No. 16,983 among girls’ names. The recent annual counts are too incomplete to establish a ten-year comparison. Published U.S. population figures for this spelling include 931 as a first name in 2020; 414 as a surname in 2020.
From Social Security birth records and U.S. Census name counts for this exact spelling. Other spellings are counted separately.
Sumi’s family of names
Sumi has a related form in Sumie. In Japanese usage, Sumi is a Roman-alphabet rendering of 須美. In Japanese usage, Sumi as a surname is a Roman-alphabet rendering of すみ.
Inner ring: spellings · outer: nicknames and forms.
Nicknames & forms 1
Diminutives, pet forms, short forms and variants used alongside the name.
Spellings & scripts 6
The same name written differently, including transliterations into other scripts.
People named Sumi
Listed by how widely each person is written about, which says nothing about the name itself.
Similar names
If you love Sumi, these share its style, era, origin or sound, from outside its own family.
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Mitsuye
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