Chay
surname · Latin script
Meaning: A chaise (horse-drawn carriage)
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 20 countries · latest register: Census Bureau, 2020
/tʃai/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Chay is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Malaysia than in any other country.
- MYMalaysia≈1 in 17K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 274K
- SGSingapore≈1 in 15K
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.
- Malaysia (inferred from the name graph)
- Record sources
- 206 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 15K (inferred from the name graph)
≈1,900 people, est.
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Singapore, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts
(measured from records)Locally spelled Chaý in MA Morocco and Chày in TN Tunisia.
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)A chaise (horse-drawn carriage).
Cited for this meaning 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 4 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Chay 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MY Malaysia | ≈1,900 est. | ≈1 in 17K | — | Chay | 51 |
| US United States | 1,212 | 1 in 274K | 1.4K | Chay | 206 |
| SG Singapore | ≈420 est. | ≈1 in 15K | — | Chay | 79 |
| FR France | ≈320 est. | ≈1 in 213K | 37 | — | 3 |
| PH Philippines | ≈240 est. | ≈1 in 457K | — | Chay | 30 |
| MA Morocco | ≈160 est. | ≈1 in 220K | — | Chaý | 11 |
| TN Tunisia | ≈53 est. | ≈1 in 221K | — | Chày | 4 |
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: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000). 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 recorded senses
(measured from records)Chay is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, variant of Chey/Chae; modern short form
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
In German, alternative form of Chaya (“girl, lass, dudette”)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Vietnamese, Artocarpus tonkinensis A Cheval (a tree in the mulberry family)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In gv, lenited form of kay
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Cebuano, feminine of choy.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name
(measured from records)- Patrick Tse Yinb. 1936CNnot in their usual nameHong Kong actor (1936–2026)
- You Xieb. 1958DEnot in their usual nameChinese-German politician and writer
- Renhōb. 1967JPnot in their usual nameJapanese politician (born 1967)
- Michael Tseb. 1967CNnot in their usual nameHong Kong actor and singer
- Xie Junb. 1970CNnot in their usual nameChinese chess player
- Tony Hsiehb. 1973USnot in their usual nameAmerican businessman (1973–2020)
- Nicholas Tseb. 1980CAnot in their usual nameHong Kong singer, actor, songwriter and chef (born 1980)
- Fiona Xieb. 1982SGnot in their usual nameSingaporean actress
- Hsieh Su-weib. 1986TWnot in their usual nameTaiwanese female tennis player
- Sean Tseb. 1992GBnot in their usual nameHong Kong football player (born 1992)
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them
(machine-generated)Evidence
(measured from records)39 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 20 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 680 | #12,902 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 269 | #12,902 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1992 | 17 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2002 | 16 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1991 | 15 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1989 | 14 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1990 | 12 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2016 | 8 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2007 | 5 | — |
Reference works 5
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
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
- What does the name Chay mean, and where does it come from?
- A chaise (horse-drawn carriage). Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Chay?
- A machine transcription gives /tʃai/ (IPA) for Spanish.
- In which country does Chay have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 1.9 thousand people named Chay in Malaysia, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled chay.
- How common is the name Chay?
- In the United States, the national register counted 1,212 people named Chay in 2010, about 1 in 274 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Chay?
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/chayThe 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, “Chay”. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.