Ruairí
given name · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ɹuɛɹi/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Ruairí is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United Kingdom than in any other country. Recorded meaning: Inherited from Old Irish Ruaidrí. Cognate to Scottish Gaelic Ruairidh and Manx Ruaree.
- IEIreland≈1 in 9.9K(inferred from the name graph)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 105K
- USUnited States1 in 1.1M
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.
- United Kingdom (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 136 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 9.9K (inferred from the name graph)
≈630 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Ireland, 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 Ruairi in GB United Kingdom, IE Ireland, US United States and 4 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(measured from records)
Inherited from Old Irish Ruaidrí. Cognate to Scottish Gaelic Ruairidh and Manx Ruaree.
Sources 1
Attested across 14 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Ruairí 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈630 est. | ≈1 in 105K | 50 | Ruairi | 136 |
| IE Ireland | #326 | ≈520 est. | ≈1 in 9.9K | 78 | Ruairi | 90 |
| US United States | — | 296 | 1 in 1.1M | 273 | Ruairi | 125 |
| AU Australia | — | ≈190 est. | ≈1 in 137K | 1 | Ruairi | 48 |
| BR Brazil | — | ≈28 est. | ≈1 in 7.6M | — | Ruairi | 3 |
| CH Switzerland | — | ≈18 est. | ≈1 in 478K | — | Ruairi | 5 |
| AE United Arab Emirates | — | ≈15 est. | ≈1 in 665K | — | Ruairi | 6 |
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: NISRA — Baby names Northern Ireland full list (1997–present); CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present). 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)
Ruairí is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Irish, a male given name from Old Irish, equivalent to English Rory
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)
- Roger Casementb. 1864IEnot in their usual nameIrish diplomat, activist, nationalist and poet (1864–1916)
- Ruairí Brughab. 1917IEIrish politician
- Ruairi Quinnb. 1946IEIrish Labour Party politician
- Ruairi O'Brienb. 1962IEIrish architect
- Ruairí McKiernanb. 1977IEIrish businessman
- Ruairí Robinsonb. 1978IEIrish film director
- Ruairi O'Connorb. 1991IEIrish actor
- Ruairí Headingb. 1991IEIrish actor
- Ruairi Keatingb. 1995IEIrish footballer
- Ruairi McConvilleb. 2005GBNorthern Irish association football player (born 2005)
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 8 sources across 5 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IE Ireland | CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present) | 2019 | 78 | #87 |
| IE Ireland | CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present) | 2018 | — | — |
| IE Ireland | CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present) | 2017 | — | — |
| IE Ireland | CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present) | 2016 | — | — |
| IE Ireland | CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present) | 2015 | — | — |
| IE Ireland | CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present) | 2014 | — | — |
| IE Ireland | CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present) | 2013 | — | — |
| IE Ireland | CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present) | 2012 | — | — |
| IE Ireland | CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present) | 2011 | — | — |
| IE Ireland | CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present) | 2010 | — | — |
| IE Ireland | CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present) | 2009 | — | — |
| IE Ireland | CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present) | 2008 | — | — |
Reference works 2
- 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
- How do you pronounce Ruairí?
- A machine transcription gives /ɹuɛɹi/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Ruairí mean, and where does it come from?
- Inherited from Old Irish Ruaidrí. Cognate to Scottish Gaelic Ruairidh and Manx Ruaree. Recorded by Wiktionary.
- Is Ruairí a male or female name?
- Ruairí is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- What are other forms of the name Ruairí?
- In the etymology graph, Roderick, Rory and Ruaidhrí are forms of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Ruairí have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 626 people named Ruairí in the United Kingdom, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled ruairi.
- How common is the name Ruairí?
- In the United States, the national register counted 296 people named Ruairí in 2020, about 1 in 1.1 million residents.
- How common is Ruairí compared with other names?
- In Ireland, Ruairí is the 326th most common given name of 14,976 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Ruairí?
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/ruair%C3%ADThe 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, “Ruairí” — the 326th most common given name in Ireland. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.