Wei character

The Chinese character 韋 means soft hide or a surname.

On late Shang oracle bones—animal bones and turtle shells used for divination—韋 appears as feet circling a walled place and means “to surround,” including an enemy attack on a settlement. Later, 韋 was borrowed for processed soft hide; by the late Western Zhou dynasty, scribes added 囗 to form 圍 and preserve the “surround” sense.

In modern Chinese names, 韋 is more likely a surname than a word for leather. The Mandarin surname sounds roughly like “way” with a rising tone; Wéi is its standard pinyin spelling. Japanese uses it as a kanji, read イ (like “ee”) or なめしがわ (“tanned hide”); Korean Hanja, Chinese-derived characters used in Korean, reads it as 위 (roughly “wee”).