Zay
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Pronunciation spelling of they, usually signifying a foreign accent, often French or German
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/zəi/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Zay is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- USUnited States1 in 323K(measured from records)
- SGSingapore≈1 in 36K
- MYMalaysia≈1 in 83K
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 States (measured from records)
- Sources
- 200 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 36K (inferred from the name graph)
1,029 people, 2020
Highest-authority source
Singapore, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Pronunciation spelling of they, usually signifying a foreign accent, often French or German.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Where in the world(measured from records)
Zay 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | 1,029 | 1 in 323K | 852 | Zay | 200 |
| MY Malaysia | ≈390 est. | ≈1 in 83K | — | Zay | 12 |
| NG Nigeria | ≈270 est. | ≈1 in 801K | — | Zay | 10 |
| SG Singapore | ≈170 est. | ≈1 in 36K | — | Zay | 16 |
| PH Philippines | ≈98 est. | ≈1 in 1.1M | — | Zay | 15 |
| PL Poland | ≈82 est. | ≈1 in 466K | 3 | Zay | 1 |
| AU Australia | ≈39 est. | ≈1 in 647K | — | Zay | 38 |
1,029 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. 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; dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames). 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)
Zay 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.
ISO 639-3 language code for Zayse-Zergulla.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Azerbaijani, flaw, defect
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)
- Zay Jeffriesb. 1888USAmerican engineer and metallurgist (1888–1965)
- Zay Hardingb. 1974USAmerican Globe Trekker and actor
- Zay Nubab. 1975ESSpanish actress
- Zay Jonesb. 1995USAmerican football player
- Zay Flowersb. 2000USAmerican football player (born 2000)
- Zay Hilfigerb. 2000USAmerican rapper
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 26 sources across 13 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 852 | #12,180 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 177 | #12,180 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2024 | 46 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2022 | 37 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2023 | 34 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 31 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2019 | 28 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2018 | 19 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2020 | 18 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2021 | 15 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2017 | 15 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2011 | 11 | — |
Reference works 5
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
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 Zay mean, and where does it come from?
- Pronunciation spelling of they, usually signifying a foreign accent, often French or German. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Zay?
- A machine transcription gives /zəi/ (IPA) for English.
- Is Zay a male or female name?
- Zay 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.
- In which country does Zay have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 1.0 thousand people named Zay, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled zay.
- How common is the name Zay?
- In the United States, the national register counted 1,029 people named Zay in 2020, about 1 in 323 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Zay?
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/zayThe 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, “Zay”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.