Ĺay
surname · Latin script
Ĺay is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. In Myanmar (Burma) it is the 2nd most common surname. Recorded meaning: From Middle English leyen, leggen, from Old English leċġan (“to lay”), from Proto-West Germanic *laggjan, from Proto-Germanic *lagjaną (“to lay”), causative form of Proto-Germanic *ligjaną (“to lie, r.
- MMMyanmar (Burma)≈1 in 527K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 18K
- UYUruguay1 in 59K
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
- 96 (measured from records)
- 1 in 18K (inferred from the name graph)
18,468 people, 2010
Highest-authority source
United States
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Lay in MM Myanmar (Burma), US United States.
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 Englishleyen(measured from records)
- Old Englishleċġan“to lay”(measured from records)
- Proto-West Germanic*laggjan(measured from records)
- Proto-Germanic*lagjaną“to lay”(measured from records)
- Proto-Indo-European*legʰ-“to lie“to lie, recline”(measured from records)
From Middle English leyen, leggen, from Old English leċġan (“to lay”), from Proto-West Germanic *laggjan, from Proto-Germanic *lagjaną (“to lay”), causative form of Proto-Germanic *ligjaną (“to lie, recline”), from Proto-Indo-European *legʰ- (“to lie, recline”). Cognate with West Frisian lizze (“to lay, to lie”), Dutch leggen (“to lay”), German legen (“to lay”), Norwegian Bokmål legge (“to lay”), Norwegian Nynorsk leggja (“to lay”), Swedish lägga (“to lay”), Icelandic leggja (“to lay”), Albanian lag (“troop, band, war encampment”).
Sources 5
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Wiktionary
- The Origin of Jewish Family Names: Morphology and History
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 16 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Ĺay 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 | — | 18,468 | 1 in 18K | 19K | Lay | 96 |
| AR Argentina | — | 419 | 1 in 109K | 419 | — | — |
| ES Spain | — | 300 | 1 in 167K | 300 | — | — |
| MM Myanmar (Burma) | #2 | ≈110 est. | ≈1 in 527K | — | Lay | 67 |
| CH Switzerland | — | 107 | 1 in 79K | 107 | — | — |
| FI Finland | — | 71 | 1 in 78K | 71 | — | 1 |
| UY Uruguay | — | 57 | 1 in 59K | 57 | — | — |
| NO Norway | — | 52 | 1 in 105K | 52 | — | 2 |
18,468 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. 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; RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population). 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 Ĺay mean, and where does it come from?
- From Middle English leyen, leggen, from Old English leċġan (“to lay”), from Proto-West Germanic *laggjan, from Proto-Germanic *lagjaną (“to lay”), causative form of Proto-Germanic *ligjaną (“to lie, r… Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names and The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland and 3 other sources.
- In which country does Ĺay have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 18 thousand people named Ĺay, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled lay.
- Where is Ĺay most common?
- Ĺay is densest in the United States, where the national register counts about 1 in 18 thousand people carrying it.
- How common is the name Ĺay?
- In the United States, the national register counted 18,468 people named Ĺay in 2010, about 1 in 18 thousand residents.
- How common is Ĺay compared with other names?
- In Myanmar (Burma), Ĺay is the 2nd most common surname of 12,945 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Ĺay?
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/%C4%BAayThe 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, “Ĺay” — the 2nd most common surname in Myanmar (Burma). Data snapshot 2026-10-10.