Gaye
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in English: (i) person from Gaye in Normandy; (ii) nickname for a cheerful person; (iii) from the medieval Catalan personal name Gai, from Latin Gaius
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˈɡeɪ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Gaye is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- TRTürkiye≈1 in 14K(inferred from the name graph)
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 6.1Kas Kaye
- PHPhilippines≈1 in 13Kas Kaye
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 Gaye 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)
- 5 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 437 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 14K (inferred from the name graph)
≈110,000 named Kaye, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Türkiye, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Kaye in US United States, PH Philippines, NZ New Zealand and 1 more and Kia in FI Finland.
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)
- Gayein(measured from records)
- LatinGaius(measured from records)
(i) person from Gaye in Normandy; (ii) nickname for a cheerful person; (iii) from the medieval Catalan personal name Gai, from Latin Gaius
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
How Gaye is read(measured from records)
Gaye is one spelling over 2 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- English71%
(i) person from Gaye in Normandy; (ii) nickname for a cheerful person; (iii) from the medieval Catalan personal name Gai, from Latin Gaius
as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
A surname transferred from the nickname.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Turkish15%
end, goal
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Amaç, erek, hedef.
as a wordTDK Kişi Adları Sözlüğü (official Turkish given-name dictionary)
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Gaye 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 | — | ≈110,000 est. | ≈1 in 13K | — | Kaye | 16 |
| US United States | #666 | 22,240as Greta | 1 in 15K | 34K | Kaye | 437 |
| HU Hungary | — | 15,308as Gréta | 1 in 638 | 15K | — | — |
| SE Sweden | — | 11,798as Greta | 1 in 865 | 12K | Gaye | 20 |
| PH Philippines | #508 | ≈8,400 est. | ≈1 in 13K | — | Kaye | 131 |
| TR Türkiye | — | ≈5,800 est. | ≈1 in 14K | — | Gaye | 52 |
| FI Finland | — | 1,672as Kia | 1 in 3.3K | 4.4K | Kia | 6 |
| NO Norway | — | 1,597as Greta | 1 in 3.4K | 5.2K | Gaye | 16 |
| AL Albania | — | 980as Greta | 1 in 3.1K | 980 | — | — |
| NZ New Zealand | #290 | ≈810 est. | ≈1 in 6.1K | 30 | Kaye | 94 |
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; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Nyilvántartó — Top-100 given names in population (2020–2025); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); SSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present); INSTAT Albania — Search the name (given-name counts). 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)
Gaye is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In cdo, an inferior prefecture, in the north of Hunan, a wood-boring insect, (pang-li)
as a wordDictionary of the Foochow Dialect
In enm, alternative form of jay
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)
- Gaye Stewartb. 1923CACanadian ice hockey player (1923-2010)
- Gaye Adegbalolab. 1944USAmerican blues singer and guitarist
- Gaye Delormeb. 1947CACanadian musician
- Gaye Krugerb. 1951USAmerican actress
- Gay Blackstoneb. 1952USnot in their usual nameAmerican magician and producer
- Gaye Advertb. 1956GBEnglish punk rock bass guitarist
- Gaye Porteousb. 1965CACanadian field hockey player
- Angela Walkerb. 1967NZnot in their usual nameNew Zealand rhythmic gymnast
- Hafize Gaye Erkanb. 1979TRTurkish economist (born 1979)
- Gaye Su Akyolb. 1985TRTurkish singer, painter and anthropologist (born 1985)
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 62 sources across 34 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 4.5K | #4,171 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 51 | #4,171 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 25 | #16,896 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 25 | #16,202 |
| NZ New Zealand | DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present) | 1970 | 10 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1976 | 8 | — |
Reference works 8
- 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
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Тахиров, Речник на турските лични имена в България
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 Gaye mean, and where does it come from?
- (i) person from Gaye in Normandy; (ii) nickname for a cheerful person; (iii) from the medieval Catalan personal name Gai, from Latin Gaius Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- How do you pronounce Gaye?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈɡeɪ/ (IPA) for English.
- Is Gaye a male or female name?
- Gaye 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 are other forms of the name Gaye?
- In the etymology graph, Gae is a form of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Gaye have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 107 thousand people named Kaye in China, more than in any other country we hold.
- How common is the name Gaye?
- In the United States, the national register counted 22,240 people named Greta in 2020, about 1 in 15 thousand residents.
- How common is Gaye compared with other names?
- In New Zealand, Gaye is the 290th most common given name of 26,737 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Gaye?
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/gayeThe 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, “Gaye” — the 290th most common given name in New Zealand. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.