Kalai

surname · Latin script

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

Kalai is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Malaysia than in any other country. Recorded meaning: Spoken form of the biblical Sarai (“Sarai”).

rarermore common
  • TNTunisia≈1 in 12K(inferred from the name graph)
  • SGSingapore≈1 in 15K
  • MYMalaysia≈1 in 22K

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.

Malaysia (inferred from the name graph)

≈1,500 people, est.

Sources
108 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 12K (inferred from the name graph)

Tunisia, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

Spoken form of the biblical Sarai (“Sarai”).

Sources 1

Where in the world(measured from records)

Kalai 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.

Where Kalai is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
MY Malaysia≈1,500 est.≈1 in 22K—Kalai34
MA Morocco≈1,100 est.≈1 in 33K—Kalai6
TN Tunisia≈970 est.≈1 in 12K—Kalai7
FR France≈680 est.≈1 in 100K74—1
DZ Algeria≈430 est.≈1 in 99Klisted—2
SG Singapore≈410 est.≈1 in 15K—Kalai21
NL Netherlands2001 in 86K200Kalai6

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: CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007); INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000); the dz-kaggle-names 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Kalai is also recorded as 7 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • English surname16 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Malaysia, India, Singapore

    Languages: English, German, Dutch

    Also written Ka-Lai, Kala'I, Kalaì, Kalaï, Kálai

  • French surname14 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, Belgium, Morocco, Tunisia

    Also written Kalaï, Kala'I, Kàlài, Kàlai, Kálai

  • Malay surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Malaysia, Indonesia, India, United States

    Languages: Malay, Indonesian

    Also written Kálai

  • Spanish surname7 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Spain, United States, India, Malaysia

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Kalaï, Kãlãi, Kálai, Kaláī

  • Arabic surname12 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Morocco, Tunisia, Kuwait, Netherlands

    Also written Kalaï, Kalaî, Kälâí, Kälâì, Kàlài

  • a separate name6 spellings in the group

    Also written Ka-Lai, Kāḷai, Kalaî, Kalaï, Kálai

  • Bangla surname4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, Malaysia, Bangladesh

    Also written কালাই

42 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Kalai 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 Hawaiian, a female given name originating from the Bible

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In aot, loincloth

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In max, to fight

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In mkj, bamboo

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In Basque, "Espacios libres de un viñedo, entreliño (V-m)" A Apend .

    as a wordOrotariko Euskal Hiztegia (OEH) — General/Historical Basque Dictionary, Euskaltzaindia

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)

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 30 sources across 17 countries.

Official registers attesting Kalai
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
NL NetherlandsCBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007)2007200#10,425
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)197180—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)198176—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)199174—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)196135—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)195113—
DZ AlgeriaAlgerian names (Kaggle, MIT)———

Reference works 2

  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • 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

What does the name Kalai mean, and where does it come from?
Spoken form of the biblical Sarai (“Sarai”). Recorded by Wiktionary.
In which country does Kalai have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 1.5 thousand people named Kalai in Malaysia, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled kalai.
How common is the name Kalai?
In the Netherlands, the national register counted 200 people named Kalai in 2007, about 1 in 86 thousand residents.

What do you want to know about Kalai?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/kalai

The 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, “Kalai”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Kalai parses inside a full name →