Rey
loc · Latin script
Meaning: (i) medieval nickname for regal behavior or pageant kingship, from Old French rey/roy ‘king’; (ii) nickname for a shy or retiring person, from Middle English ray ‘female roe deer’; (iii) a different f
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Rey is a name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Spain than in any other country.
- ESSpain1 in 1.3K(measured from records)
- ARArgentina1 in 2.9K
- COColombia≈1 in 1.8K
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.
- Spain (measured from records)
- Sources
- 368 (measured from records)
- 1 in 1.3K (inferred from the name graph)
38,603 people
Highest-authority source
Spain
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
- Old Frenchrey/roy(measured from records)
- Middle Englishray(measured from records)
(i) medieval nickname for regal behavior or pageant kingship, from Old French rey/roy ‘king’; (ii) nickname for a shy or retiring person, from Middle English ray ‘female roe deer’; (iii) a different form of Rye; (iv) a different form of Wray
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 12 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Rey 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.
38,603 people counted by INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos). 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: 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); INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000); the co-datosgov-candidates register. 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)
Rey 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, Either see Ray, or from Spanish rey ‘king’, meaning ‘servant of the king’ or a royal nickname.
as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
In English, Spanish 'king'
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
In cdo, as or to speak of, to say, to call, diligent, it means, it is called, (iu-di), addressing him, said, (gaeng-igong)
as a wordDictionary of the Foochow Dialect
ISO 639-3 language code for Reyesano.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Portuguese, obsolete spelling of rei
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)
- Mikołaj Rejb. 1505UAnot in their usual namePolish poet and prose writer, politician and musician of the Renaissance (1505-1569)
- Ernest Reyerb. 1823FRnot in their usual nameFrench opera composer and music critic (1823–1909)
- Jean Reyb. 1902BEBelgian politician (1902–1983)
- Fernando Reyb. 1917ESSpanish actor (1917–1994)
- Antonia Reyb. 1927CUCuban-American actress
- Micheline Calmy-Reyb. 1945CHmember of the Swiss Federal Council
- Thierry Reyb. 1959FRFrench judoka
- José Manuel Reyb. 1975VEVenezuelan footballer
- Alberto Ammannb. 1978ARnot in their usual nameArgentine actor
- Rey Manajb. 1997ALAlbanian association football player
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).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 81 sources across 39 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 74 | #20,052 |
| ES Spain | INE — Nombres más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 60 | #11,137 |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Nombres de nacimientos (2012–present) | 2024 | 26 | #1,415 |
Reference works 7
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
- Cognomix.it (Nomix s.r.l.) — Italian surname origin dictionary
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 Rey mean, and where does it come from?
- (i) medieval nickname for regal behavior or pageant kingship, from Old French rey/roy ‘king’; (ii) nickname for a shy or retiring person, from Middle English ray ‘female roe deer’; (iii) a different f… Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- In which country does Rey have the most bearers?
- In Spain, the national register counted about 39 thousand people named Rey, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled rey.
- Where is Rey most common?
- Rey is densest in Spain, where the national register counts about 1 in 1.3 thousand people carrying it.
- How common is the name Rey?
- In Spain, the national register counted 38,603 people named Rey, about 1 in 1.3 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Rey?
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/reyThe 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, “Rey”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.