For Mills, I would start with 米 Mǐ. It keeps the opening character of the documented Chinese spelling 米尔斯／米爾斯 Mǐ’ěrsī, and 米 is independently recorded as a surname pronounced mǐ. 糜 Mí is worth comparing if you prefer a rising tone and a different written character. It does not preserve more of the English name, so it needs a personal reason to displace 米. Chinese name pairing, 米 dictionary.

The important decision is how much of Mills you need other people to recognise. A short Chinese surname can retain a useful starting point; it cannot retain the whole family name in one syllable.

What happens to the end of Mills?

Collins gives /mɪlz/ for Mills. This is one syllable, with a final /lz/ sequence. In Mǐ’ěrsī, Mandarin spreads the adaptation over three syllables. Choosing only 米 keeps the initial m and a front vowel, changes /ɪ/ to Mandarin i, adds a tone, and drops the end of the English surname. The final s in the spelling Mills is pronounced /z/ here; it is not a separate English syllable. Collins.

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs places Marshall Mills beside 马歇尔·米尔斯. That is direct evidence for this written rendering of a real surname. It is not a rule that every Mills must use it. If your family already has a settled Chinese spelling, begin with that spelling and your own pronunciation.

Keep Mills / 米尔斯 in a bilingual introduction when recognition matters. If you instead introduce yourself with 米 followed by a separately chosen Chinese given name, make that new name explicit. Do not present 尔斯 as though it were automatically your given name.

米 and 糜 are different surnames

米 Mǐ, third tone, is easy to connect to the full rendering: 我姓米，米尔斯的米 means “My surname is Mǐ, the first character of Mǐ’ěrsī.” The dictionary also gives ordinary grain-related senses, but its separate surname sense is what establishes it as a family name. 米 has the same standard written form in simplified and traditional Chinese.

糜 Mí, second tone, has its surname sense under the mí subsection of the Ministry of Education dictionary. The same page also shows méi, but that reading belongs to another subsection referring to 糜子. A page with two romanisations does not make both readings interchangeable in the surname comparison. 糜 dictionary.

糜 changes the tone and makes the written form considerably more elaborate. It also appears in ordinary words with meanings quite different from a surname. Those words do not describe people called Mí. The useful question is whether you want this particular character and are comfortable explaining it, rather than whether its every dictionary sense sounds flattering.

Try 米 + your given name and 糜 + the same given name aloud. Keep the given name fixed while making the comparison. Unmarked Mi hides the tone and the character; it is not enough for someone to write your surname correctly.

The mill connection has more than one route

The Dictionary of American Family Names describes Mills partly through Mill with an added -s, and also records other routes, including forms related to Miles or Myhill. Its Mill entry includes residence near a mill and, in practice, work at one. This supports a possible milling connection, but it does not reduce every Mills family to one occupation. Mills, Mill.

The ending -s is therefore not enough to tell a story about ancestors owning several mills. Nor should Mills simply be replaced with Miller. Their spellings, endings and possible histories need to be kept distinct even when a naming suggestion happens to overlap.

Rice or grain may give 米 an extra personal resonance if milling genuinely matters to you. It still names neither the building nor the worker. The sound-based recommendation works without claiming that Mills literally means rice, that all mills processed rice, or that Chinese 米 families originated in the same trade.

That is also why an ancient inventor's or philosopher's surname is unnecessary here. An interesting account of machinery does not by itself explain why its inventor's surname would be a better personal name for you. The connection to 米 is already short, concrete and honest.

Decide what you want to say when asked

Three explanations lead to different choices:

  • “I kept the first character of 米尔斯”: start with 米 Mǐ.
  • “I preferred another surname with a rising mi syllable”: compare 糜 Mí.
  • “I need people to recognise my complete original surname”: keep Mills / 米尔斯 visible alongside your Chinese name.

My default remains 米. Before settling on it, ask a Mandarin speaker to read the complete name from the characters, then check the tone, surname boundary and any unintended phrase.

Notes and sources

The Chinese dictionaries establish the stated surname readings, not present-day surname frequency or descent. The official bilingual name list supplies a transcription example. Collins supplies the English pronunciation; the surname histories above are attributed to the scholarly dictionary as reproduced by Ancestry.

The series source places Mills at website position 91 in British Surnames, covering Great Britain, not Northern Ireland. The reference year, counting unit and method of this modern list remain unverified; the ranking table supplies no count. This is not an official current UK population rank. Choosing 米 or 糜 is an editorial naming suggestion, not a translation certificate or genealogical conclusion.