Lãï
given name · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Lãï is a given name used for both men and women, written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Malaysia than in any other country, where it is the 79th most common surname. Recorded meaning: From Middle English lai, lay, from Old French lai (“song, lyric, poem”), from Old Frankish *laik, *laih (“play, melody, song”), from Proto-Germanic *laikaz, *laikiz (“jump, play, dance, hymn”), from P.
- HKHong Kong≈1 in 88(inferred from the name graph)
- MYMalaysia≈1 in 380
- SGSingapore≈1 in 970
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)
- Record sources
- 438 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 88 (inferred from the name graph)
≈94,000 people, est.
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Hong Kong, 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 Lai in US United States, MY Malaysia, AU Australia and 3 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)- Middle Englishlai(measured from records)
- Old Frenchlai“song“song, lyric, poem”(measured from records)
- Old Frankish*laik“play“play, melody, song”(measured from records)
- Proto-Germanic*laikaz“jump“jump, play, dance, hymn”(measured from records)
- Proto-Indo-European*leyg-“to jump“to jump, spring, play”(measured from records)
From Middle English lai, lay, from Old French lai (“song, lyric, poem”), from Old Frankish *laik, *laih (“play, melody, song”), from Proto-Germanic *laikaz, *laikiz (“jump, play, dance, hymn”), from Proto-Indo-European *leyg- (“to jump, spring, play”). Akin to Old High German leih (“a play, skit, melody, song”), Middle High German leich (“piece of music, epic song played on a harp”), Gothic 𐌻𐌰𐌹𐌺𐍃 (laiks, “a dance”), Old English lācan (“to move quickly, fence, sing”). More at lake.
Cited for this meaning 5
- 25,000 nombres de bebé. La mejor guía para escoger el nombre adecuado
- A Genealogists Guide to Indian Names A Reference for First Names from India
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Wiktionary
- Schuessler, ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese (2007)
Attested across 26 languages in the etymology graph.
Where the surname Lãï is found
(measured from records)Lãï 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MY Malaysia | #79 | ≈94,000 est. | ≈1 in 379 | — | Lai | 140 |
| HK Hong Kong | #37 | ≈86,000 est. | ≈1 in 88 | — | Lai | 135 |
| US United States | — | 19,157 | 1 in 17K | 22K | Lai | 438 |
| CA Canada | #590 | ≈6,500 est. | ≈1 in 6.3K | — | Lai | 216 |
| SG Singapore | #73 | ≈6,200 est. | ≈1 in 974 | — | Lai | 158 |
| AU Australia | #332 | ≈5,800 est. | ≈1 in 4.7K | 1 | Lai | 208 |
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; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; 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).
Evidence
(measured from records)No register attests this spelling yet
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Lãï mean, and where does it come from?
- From Middle English lai, lay, from Old French lai (“song, lyric, poem”), from Old Frankish *laik, *laih (“play, melody, song”), from Proto-Germanic *laikaz, *laikiz (“jump, play, dance, hymn”), from P… Recorded by 25,000 nombres de bebé. La mejor guía para escoger el nombre adecuado and A Genealogists Guide to Indian Names A Reference for First Names from India and 3 other sources.
- Is Lãï a male or female name?
- Lãï 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.
- Which countries have the most people with the surname Lãï?
- Mondonomo estimates about 94 thousand people named Lãï in Malaysia, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled lai. After it come Hong Kong, United States, Canada and Singapore; the country table on this page ranks them.
- How common is the name Lãï?
- In the United States, the national register counted 19,157 people named Lãï in 2010, about 1 in 17 thousand residents.
- How common is Lãï compared with other names?
- In Malaysia, Lãï is the 79th most common surname of 291,743 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Lãï?
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/l%C3%A3%C3%AFThe 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, “Lãï” — the 79th most common surname in Malaysia. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.