Faye
given name · Latin script
Meaning: from Irish Gaelic Ó Fathaigh ‘descendant of Fathach’, a personal name probably based on Gaelic fothadh ‘foundation’
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/fej/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Faye is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 3.5K(inferred from the name graph)
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 3.5K
- IEIreland≈1 in 3.5K
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 Faye 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.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 468 (measured from records)
- 1 in 2.8K (inferred from the name graph)
≈390,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Guyana
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
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)
from Irish Gaelic Ó Fathaigh ‘descendant of Fathach’, a personal name probably based on Gaelic fothadh ‘foundation’
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Faye 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈390,000 est. | ≈1 in 3.6K | — | Faye | 24 |
| US United States | #489 | 37,526 | 1 in 8.9K | 37K | Faye | 468 |
| GB United Kingdom | #395 | ≈19,000 est. | ≈1 in 3.5K | 147 | Faye | 246 |
| IT Italy | #841 | ≈7,500 est. | ≈1 in 8.3K | 1 | Faye | 26 |
| PH Philippines | — | ≈7,300 est. | ≈1 in 15K | — | Faye | 128 |
| DK Denmark | — | 2,245as Fie | 1 in 2.6K | 2.2K | Faye | 19 |
| IE Ireland | #243 | ≈1,500 est. | ≈1 in 3.5K | 123 | Faye | 67 |
| NZ New Zealand | #298 | ≈1,400 est. | ≈1 in 3.5K | 15 | Faye | 88 |
| GY Guyana | — | 271 | 1 in 2.8K | 271 | — | 7 |
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 — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); ISTAT — Contanomi newborn per-name series (1999–2024, JSONP backend); DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present); CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025. 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)
Faye is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In French, English name from Old French fae/fée ‘fairy’
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
Variant of (Fay, associated particularly with the American actress Faye Dunaway (b. 1941).
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In French, Feminine of Félix; from Latin, “faith.”
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
In German, ) Fay [fei]: gegen Ende des 19. Jh.s in
as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
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)
- Faye Emersonb. 1917USAmerican actress (1917–1983)
- Faye Dunawayb. 1941USAmerican actress
- Jerry Hallb. 1956USnot in their usual nameAmerican model
- Faye Grantb. 1957USAmerican actress
- Faye Wongb. 1969CNHong Kong singer-songwriter and actress
- Faye Whiteb. 1978GBEnglish association football player (born 1978)
- Jessica Gunningb. 1986GBnot in their usual nameBritish television and theatre actress
- Faye Marsayb. 1986GBBritish actress
- Faye Reaganb. 1988USAmerican pornographic actress
- Jennette McCurdyb. 1992USnot in their usual nameAmerican writer and former actress (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)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 79 sources across 39 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 37K | #1,099 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 579 | — |
| GY Guyana | Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025 | 2025 | 271 | #334 |
| IE Ireland | CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present) | 2019 | 123 | #47 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 110 | #1,099 |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 35 | #3,360 |
| GB United Kingdom | NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present) | 2024 | 19 | #196 |
| GB United Kingdom | NISRA — Baby names Northern Ireland full list (1997–present) | 2025 | 17 | #121 |
| NZ New Zealand | DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present) | 2022 | 15 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1964 | 6 | — |
Reference works 7
- 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
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
- Ethiopian name tokens (GitHub lehagere/ethiopian-names, 40/60 condominium list)
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
- Is Faye a male or female name?
- Faye is recorded for both men and women. We don't publish a percentage split: a record's gender belongs to the person and is attached to every given name on that record, so names in cultures where a name string also carries a parent's or spouse's given name pick up large cross-gender counts.
- What does the name Faye mean, and where does it come from?
- from Irish Gaelic Ó Fathaigh ‘descendant of Fathach’, a personal name probably based on Gaelic fothadh ‘foundation’ Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- How common is the name Faye?
- In the United States, the national register counted 37,526 people named Faye in 2020, about 1 in 8.9 thousand residents.
- How common is Faye compared with other names?
- In Ireland, Faye is the 243rd most common given name of 14,976 given names recorded there.
- How do you pronounce Faye?
- A machine transcription gives /fej/ (IPA) for English.
- What are other forms of the name Faye?
- In the etymology graph, Fay and Fae are forms of the same name in other languages; it is recorded as a short form of Faith and Faithe.
- In which country does Faye have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 386 thousand people named Faye in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled faye.
- Where is Faye most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Faye is densest in Guyana — about 1 in 2.8 thousand people — even though China holds more of our records for it.
What do you want to know about Faye?
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/fayeThe 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, “Faye” — the 243rd most common given name in Ireland. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.