Šalaj
surname · Latin script
/ʂalaj/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Šalaj is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Croatia than in any other country.
- HRCroatia1 in 7K(measured from records)
- ALAlbania≈1 in 5.5K
- MEMontenegro≈1 in 39K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Croatia (measured from records)
- Sources
- 43 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 5.5K (inferred from the name graph)
603 people, 2021
Highest-authority source
Albania, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Salaj in HR Croatia, AL Albania, US United States and 2 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
No verified etymology recorded for this name yet — the entries below are drawn from usage statistics and the name graph.
Attested across 4 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Šalaj 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.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HR Croatia | #781 | 603 | 1 in 7K | 603 | Salaj | 43 |
| AL Albania | #763 | ≈560 est. | ≈1 in 5.5K | — | Salaj | 26 |
| CZ Czechia | — | 137 | 1 in 78K | 137 | — | — |
| IT Italy | — | ≈130 est. | ≈1 in 497K | — | Salaj | 3 |
| US United States | — | ≈120 est. | ≈1 in 2.8M | listed | Salaj | 37 |
| SI Slovenia | — | 54 | 1 in 39K | 54 | — | 2 |
| ME Montenegro | — | ≈16 est. | ≈1 in 39K | — | Salaj | 4 |
603 people counted by DZS — Imena i prezimena (per-token lookup form), 2021. 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: DZS — Imena i prezimena (per-token lookup form); MVČR — living population register 2017; stat.si Imena rojstva — full name register (per-token frequency + rank). 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).
How to address them(machine-generated)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 3 sources across 1 country.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HR Croatia | DZS — Imena i prezimena (per-token lookup form) | 2021 | 71 | #10,363 |
| HR Croatia | DZS — Učestalost prezimena (Popis 2021) | 2021 | 65 | — |
Reference works 1
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- How do you pronounce Šalaj?
- A machine transcription gives /ʂalaj/ (IPA) for Croatian.
- In which country does Šalaj have the most bearers?
- In Croatia, the national register counted about 603 people named Šalaj, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled salaj.
- How common is the name Šalaj?
- In Croatia, the national register counted 603 people named Šalaj in 2021, about 1 in 7.0 thousand residents.
- How common is Šalaj compared with other names?
- In Croatia, Šalaj is the 781st most common surname of 72,581 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Šalaj?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/%C5%A1alajThe 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, “Šalaj” — the 781st most common surname in Croatia. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.