Alai
given name · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Alai is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Nigeria than in any other country. Recorded meaning: second-person plural imperative of alar.
- ARArgentina≈1 in 116K(inferred from the name graph)
- UYUruguay1 in 37K
- ESSpain1 in 108K
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.
- Nigeria (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 60 (measured from records)
- 1 in 37K (inferred from the name graph)
≈580 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Uruguay
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
second-person plural imperative of alar
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Where in the world(measured from records)
Alai 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.
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: RENAPER — Nombres de nacimientos (2012–present); INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); IBGE — Nomes (census name API); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; INE Uruguay — Nombres más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public). 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)
Alai 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 Basque, vigorous, spirited, passionate; merry, happy, gay
as a wordTrask, Etymological Dictionary of Basque (2008 posthumous draft)
In Russian, Alai Vasil'ev syn Lodyzhenskogo, Moscow noble. 1565.
as a wordA Dictionary of Period Russian Names (Wickenden / Goldschmidt 1996)
In frp, Alternative form of alar (“to go”) documented in the following location(s): Fontainemore
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Italian, first-person singular past historic of alare
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Romanian, crowd that follows a ceremony
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.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 39 sources across 20 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 218 | #90,848 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 213 | #87,335 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 205 | #84,968 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
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 Alai mean, and where does it come from?
- second-person plural imperative of alar Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- Is Alai a male or female name?
- Alai 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 Alai have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 582 people named Alai in Nigeria, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled alai.
- Where is Alai most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Alai is densest in Uruguay — about 1 in 37 thousand people — even though Nigeria holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Alai?
- In Spain, the national register counted 461 people named Alai, about 1 in 108 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Alai?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/alaiThe same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use; a free API key gives 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, “Alai”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.