Ŕaý

surname · Latin script

Ŕaý is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in India than in any other country. Recorded meaning: Via Middle English, borrowed from Old French rai, from Latin radius (“staff, stake, spoke”). Doublet of radius.

  • INIndia1 in 387(measured from records)
  • NZNew Zealand≈1 in 2.2K
  • SGSingapore≈1 in 2.3K

carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Ŕaý itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

India (measured from records)

3,425,366 people

#484 (measured from records)

of 19M surnames, spellings grouped

3 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Record sources
621 (measured from records)

corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling

strongest: highest-authority source

1 in 387 (inferred from the name graph)

India

measured from records inferred from the name graph

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Spellings & scripts

(measured from records)
ŔaýLatin(measured from records)
ΡειGreek(measured from records)
РайCyrillic(measured from records)

One other spelling is counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Ray in IN India, US United States, GB United Kingdom and 4 more.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin

(measured from records)
Derivation of Ŕaý: each step is the form the one above it came from.
Ŕaý
  1. MiddleEnglish(measured from records)
  2. Old Frenchrai(measured from records)
  3. Latinradius“staff“staff, stake, spoke”(measured from records)

Via Middle English, borrowed from Old French rai, from Latin radius (“staff, stake, spoke”). Doublet of radius.

Cited for this meaning 5

  • A concise dictionary of first names
  • The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
  • Wiktionary
  • Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
  • Nordic Names

Attested across 27 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world

(measured from records)

Ŕaý counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.

Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.

Where Ŕaý is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
IN India#9203,425,3661 in 3873.4MRay180
US United States#124133,1711 in 2.5K133KRay621
ES Spain—38,603as Rey1 in 1.3K39KRay101
GB United Kingdom#295≈24,000 est.≈1 in 2.9K—Ray294
AR Argentina—15,895as Rey1 in 2.9K16K—2
CH Switzerland—4,547as Rey1 in 1.8K4.5KRay66
SG Singapore#162≈2,600 est.≈1 in 2.3K—Ray98
NZ New Zealand#154≈2,400 est.≈1 in 2.2K11Ray132

3,425,366 people counted by Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.

Registers cited: Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).

Other names spelled this way

(inferred from the name graph)

Ŕaý is also recorded as 2 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Hindi surname117 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, United States, Bangladesh, United Kingdom

    Languages: Hindi, Bangla, Urdu

    Also written Ray, Roy, রায়, রায, Rāẏa

  • Indonesian surname30 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, Indonesia, United States, Malaysia

    Languages: Indonesian, Malay

    Also written Ray, Rayy, 'Ray, Ray', Rãy

1 further group record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Evidence

(measured from records)

No register attests this spelling yet

None of the official registers or reference works in our corpus lists Ŕaý under this spelling. The statistics on this page rest on person records, and the related names are inferred from the name graph.

Frequently asked questions

What does the name Ŕaý mean, and where does it come from?
Via Middle English, borrowed from Old French rai, from Latin radius (“staff, stake, spoke”). Doublet of radius. Recorded by A concise dictionary of first names and The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland and 3 other sources.
In which country does Ŕaý have the most bearers?
In India, the national register counted about 3.4 million people named Ŕaý, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled ray.
Where is Ŕaý most common?
Ŕaý is densest in India, where the national register counts about 1 in 387 people carrying it.
How common is the name Ŕaý?
In India, the national register counted 3,425,366 people named Ŕaý, about 1 in 387 residents.
How common is Ŕaý compared with other names?
In India, Ŕaý is the 920th most common surname of 1,492,515 surnames recorded there.

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/%C5%95a%C3%BD

The payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.

About this data

measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated

These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.

Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.

Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.

Cite this page Mondonomo, “Ŕaý” — the 920th most common surname in India. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.

See how Ŕaý parses inside a full name →