Sain
surname · Latin script
Meaning: To make the sign of the cross on or over something or someone
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/seɪn/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Sain is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Nigeria than in any other country. In Türkiye it is the 27th most common surname.
- AMArmenia≈1 in 1.4M(inferred from the name graph)
- NGNigeria≈1 in 297as Sani
- TRTürkiye≈1 in 411as Şen
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 Sain 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.
- Nigeria (inferred from the name graph)
- #345 (measured from records)
- 12 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 459 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.4M (inferred from the name graph)
≈720,000 named Sani, est.
of 19M surnames
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Armenia, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
20 other spellings are counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Sana in PK Pakistan, MA Morocco, Sani in NG Nigeria, ID Indonesia, Soni in IN India and Şen in TR Türkiye.
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)
To make the sign of the cross on or over something or someone.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 5 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Sain 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NG Nigeria | — | ≈720,000 est. | ≈1 in 297 | listed | Sani | 63 |
| IN India | #78 | 218,303as Sen | 1 in 6.1K | 218K | Soni | 293 |
| TR Türkiye | #27 | ≈200,000 est. | ≈1 in 411 | #94 | Şen | 125 |
| PK Pakistan | #597 | ≈33,000 est. | ≈1 in 7K | listed | Sana | 133 |
| ID Indonesia | — | ≈32,000 est. | ≈1 in 8.2K | listed | Sani | 151 |
| AR Argentina | — | 16,831as Sena | 1 in 2.7K | 17K | Jona | 39 |
| MA Morocco | — | ≈7,300 est. | ≈1 in 4.8K | listed | Sana | 96 |
| FI Finland | — | 3,007as Suni | 1 in 1.9K | 26K | Sanna | 10 |
| AM Armenia | — | ≈2 est. | ≈1 in 1.4M | 134 | Սոնա | 74 |
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: Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls; DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); Statistical Committee of the Republic of Armenia — Most Frequent Newborn Given Names by Sex, Armenian script, 2008-2020 + 2023. 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)
Sain 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 Italian, do lat. sagina; nos dialetos setentrionais, ligado ao produtor/mercador de sorgo.
as a nameDicionário dos sobrenomes italianos
In Finnish, first-person singular past indicative of saada
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Estonian, first-person singular past indicative of saama
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In enm, alternative form of seien
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In French, healthy; in good health
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)
- Édouard Sainb. 1830FRFrench painter (1830-1910)
- Isidoro Sainb. 1869HRRoman Catholic bishop
- Kanwar Sainb. 1899INIndian Civil Engineer
- Orlando Sainb. 1912ITItalian footballer (1912-1995)
- Johnny Sainb. 1917USAmerican baseball player and coach
- Oliver Sainb. 1932USAmerican saxophonist, songwriter, bandleader, drummer and record producer (1932-2003)
- Pappu Sainb. 1956PKPakistani musician
- Sameer Sainb. 1971INFounder of Everstone
- Aruzhan Sainb. 1976KZKazakhstani television presenter
- Rene Sainb. 1997HRCroatian volleyball 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).
How to address them(machine-generated)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 41 sources across 25 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IN India | Instate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls | — | 21K | #58 |
| IN India | Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls | — | 18K | #661 |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national) | — | 721 | — |
Reference works 3
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Ismlar.com — Uzbek given-name dictionary (meanings, gender, origin)
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 Sain mean, and where does it come from?
- To make the sign of the cross on or over something or someone. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Sain?
- A machine transcription gives /seɪn/ (IPA) for Hindi.
- In which country does Sain have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 721 thousand people named Sani in Nigeria, more than in any other country we hold.
- How common is the name Sain?
- In India, the national register counted 218,303 people named Sen, about 1 in 6.1 thousand residents.
- How common is Sain compared with other names?
- In Türkiye, Sain is the 27th most common surname of 619,652 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Sain?
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/sainThe 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, “Sain” — the 27th most common surname in Türkiye. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.