Meaning and background
The story behind Mei
Mei is used as a given name in more than one East Asian language. In Mandarin Chinese, characters such as 美, meaning beautiful, and 梅, a flowering plum, can be written mei with different tones. Japanese Mei can use combinations such as 芽依, with kanji meanings that depend on the chosen characters. A Latin-letter spelling alone cannot reveal which origin or translation was intended, so a single universal meaning would mislead.
- Origin
- Given name used in Chinese and Japanese; Chinese 美 (měi) and 梅 (méi), and Japanese combinations such as 芽依 (Mei), are different possible spellings with different meanings. Source
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Everyday moments“Mei, come here!”
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About Mei
Recorded as a dog’s name
Mei appears in 13 dog licence records in the 2026 New York City dataset.
How to read this count
These records cover New York City and may count the same dog in more than one licence period. They are not a national popularity ranking.
Pronunciation and rhythm
/meɪ/
US English sound sequence, converted from the CMU dictionary. Stress marks are shown separately.
Stress on the first syllable in the recorded US readings.
View dictionary notation
/meɪ/ · primary stress on syllable 1M EY1
These are US dictionary readings. Personal, regional and other language pronunciations may differ.
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Sources and research notes (2)
- New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene NYC Dog Licensing Dataset — extract_year 2026 — Dog licence periods, not unique dogs; NYC only. No owner-level fields retrieved.
- Carnegie Mellon University / CMU Sphinx maintainers CMU US English Pronouncing Dictionary — US English dictionary readings; not owner-specific or exhaustive multilingual pronunciation
References support the individual facts shown. A source link does not mean the entire profile has been verified.