Faïs

surname · Latin script

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Faïs is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Brazil than in any other country. Recorded meaning: faux, fallacieux, illicite.

rarermore common
  • BEBelgium1 in 213K(measured from records)
  • BRBrazil1 in 365K
  • CHSwitzerland1 in 382K

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.

Brazil (measured from records)

580 people

Sources
97 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 213K (inferred from the name graph)

Belgium

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

One other spelling is counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Fais in FR France, BE Belgium.

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)

faux, fallacieux, illicite

Sources 1

  • Deshayes, Dictionnaire étymologique du breton (2003)

Attested across 13 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Faïs 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.

Where Faïs is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
BR Brazil5801 in 365K580——
BE Belgium551 in 213K55Fais13
CH Switzerland221 in 382K22—2
FR France≈15 est.≈1 in 4.4M14Fais97
AR Argentina151 in 3M15——
HR Croatia111 in 384K11——

580 people counted by IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname). 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: IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000); Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); DZS — Imena i prezimena (per-token lookup form). 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Faïs is also recorded as another name, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Indonesian surname24 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Indonesia, Malaysia, United States, Thailand

    Languages: Indonesian, English, Thai

    Also written Fais, Faiz, ฟาอิซ, ฟาอีซ, Fa'Is

2 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 2 sources across 1 country.

Official registers attesting Faïs
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
CH SwitzerlandBFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames)20248#72,019

Reference works 1

  • 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 Faïs mean, and where does it come from?
faux, fallacieux, illicite Recorded by Deshayes, Dictionnaire étymologique du breton (2003).
In which country does Faïs have the most bearers?
In Brazil, the national register counted about 580 people named Faïs, more than in any other country we hold.
Where is Faïs most common?
Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Faïs is densest in Belgium — about 1 in 213 thousand people — even though Brazil holds more of our records for it.
How common is the name Faïs?
In Brazil, the national register counted 580 people named Faïs, about 1 in 365 thousand residents.

What do you want to know about Faïs?

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Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/fa%C3%AFs

The 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, “Faïs”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Faïs parses inside a full name →