Paìn
surname · Latin script
Paìn is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. Recorded meaning: From Middle English peyne, payne, from Old French and Anglo-Norman peine, paine, from Latin poena (“punishment, pain”), from Ancient Greek ποινή (poinḗ, “bloodmoney, weregild, fine, price paid, penalt.
- FRFrance≈1 in 11K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 2.3Kas Payne
- AUAustralia≈1 in 15Kas Paine
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 Paìn 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.
- United States (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 396 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 11K (inferred from the name graph)
142,601 named Payne, 2010
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
France, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Paine in US United States, GB United Kingdom, IN India and 1 more, Pain in FR France and Payne in KP North Korea.
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)
- Middle Englishpeyne(measured from records)
- Old Frenchand(measured from records)
- Latinpoena“punishment“punishment, pain”(measured from records)
- Ancient Greekποινήpoinḗ“bloodmoney, weregild, fine, price paid, penalty”(measured from records)
From Middle English peyne, payne, from Old French and Anglo-Norman peine, paine, from Latin poena (“punishment, pain”), from Ancient Greek ποινή (poinḗ, “bloodmoney, weregild, fine, price paid, penalty”). Doublet of peine. Compare Danish pine, Norwegian Bokmål pine, German Pein, Dutch pijn, Afrikaans pyn. See also pine (the verb). Partly displaced native Old English sār (whence Modern English sore).
Sources 3
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Wiktionary
- Dictionnaire des noms de famille du Canada français. Anthroponymie et généalogie. 2e édition
Attested across 27 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Paìn 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | — | 142,601as Payne | 1 in 2.3K | 143K | Paine | 396 |
| IN India | — | 10,050 | 1 in 132K | 10K | Paine | 28 |
| BR Brazil | — | 6,631 | 1 in 32K | 6.6K | — | 1 |
| FR France | #779 | ≈6,200 est. | ≈1 in 11K | 814 | Pain | 273 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈3,800 est. | ≈1 in 17K | 50K | Paine | 173 |
| AU Australia | — | ≈1,700 est. | ≈1 in 15K | 1 | Paine | 128 |
| KP North Korea | #165 | ≈590 est. | ≈1 in 43K | — | Payne | 2 |
| GY Guyana | — | 457as Payne | 1 in 1.6K | 457 | — | 1 |
| VC St. Vincent & Grenadines | — | 89as Payne | 1 in 1.1K | 89 | — | — |
142,601 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010, counting the spelling payne. 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; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000); Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls; IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present); Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025; Electoral Office of St Vincent & the Grenadines — Final Voters List (Nov 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).
Evidence(measured from records)
No register attests this spelling yet
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Paìn mean, and where does it come from?
- From Middle English peyne, payne, from Old French and Anglo-Norman peine, paine, from Latin poena (“punishment, pain”), from Ancient Greek ποινή (poinḗ, “bloodmoney, weregild, fine, price paid, penalt… Recorded by The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland and Wiktionary and 1 other source.
- In which country does Paìn have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 143 thousand people named Payne, more than in any other country we hold.
- How common is the name Paìn?
- In India, the national register counted 10,050 people named Paìn, about 1 in 132 thousand residents.
- How common is Paìn compared with other names?
- In North Korea, Paìn is the 165th most common surname of 2,439 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Paìn?
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/pa%C3%ACnThe same 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), and bulk access is licensed separately.
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, “Paìn” — the 165th most common surname in North Korea. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.