Jair
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Jair is a boy's name of Hebrew origin that means "he shines" or "he's enlightened"
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ʒɐiɾ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Jair is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Brazil than in any other country.
- COColombia≈1 in 1.5K(inferred from the name graph)
- BRBrazil1 in 1.6K
- ECEcuador1 in 2K
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)
- Sources
- 230 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.5K (inferred from the name graph)
128,980 people, 2022
Highest-authority source
Colombia, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Jair is a boy's name of Hebrew origin that means "he shines" or "he's enlightened". It is a biblical name associated with a judge of Israel as well as the father of the more famous Mordecai in the Book of Esther.
Sources 1
- Biblical Names Compiled Database
Attested across 7 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Jair 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | #186 | 128,980 | 1 in 1.6K | 152K | Jair | 174 |
| CO Colombia | #224 | ≈33,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.5K | 17 | Jair | 125 |
| EC Ecuador | #477 | 8,344 | 1 in 2K | 8.3K | Jair | 45 |
| US United States | — | 6,898 | 1 in 48K | 6.8K | Jair | 230 |
| PE Peru | #527 | ≈6,000 est. | ≈1 in 5.3K | — | Jair | 76 |
| PA Panama | #104 | ≈1,600 est. | ≈1 in 2.4K | 9 | Jair | 37 |
128,980 people counted by IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror), 2022. 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 — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); IBGE — Nomes (census name API); the co-datosgov-candidates register; Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; INEC — civil registry names; Tribunal Electoral — Boletín, postulaciones for the 5 May 2024 general election. 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)
Jair 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.
The name Jair is of Hebrew origin (יָאִיר, Yā'îr) and means "he enlightens," "he shines," or "God gives light".
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
A biblical name meaning 'he shines' or 'he enlightens', symbolizing light and guidance.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
A biblical name of Hebrew origin meaning 'he shines' or 'he enlightens'.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
He represents a period of stability and continuity in the era of the Judges, noted specifically for the prosperity and established governance of his large family.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
He represents the successful settlement and claiming of the Transjordanian territories by the Israelite tribes.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
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)
- Jair da Rosa Pintob. 1921BRBrazilian footballer and manager (1921-2005)
- Jair Rodriguesb. 1939BRBrazilian musician and singer (1939–2014)
- Jairzinhob. 1944BRnot in their usual nameBrazilian footballer
- Jair Bolsonarob. 1955BR38th President of the Federative Republic of Brazil (2019–2023)
- Yair Lapidb. 1963ILnot in their usual nameLeader of the Opposition in the Knesset (Israeli Parliament), Former Prime Minister of Israel in 2022 and Chairman of the Yesh Atid Party
- Yair Qedarb. 1969ILnot in their usual nameIsraeli filmmaker
- Jair Marrufob. 1977USAmerican association football referee
- Jair Eduardo Britto da Silvab. 1988BRBrazilian association football player
- Yair Netanyahub. 1991ILnot in their usual nameson of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
- Yair Rodríguezb. 1992MXnot in their usual nameMexican mixed martial artist and Taekwondo black belt
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 59 sources across 34 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Nomes (census name API) | — | 152K | #323 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 129K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 128K | #253 |
| EC Ecuador | INEC — civil registry names | 2024 | 8.3K | #219 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 6.8K | #3,159 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 892 | #253 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | 2020 | 485 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 170 | — |
| EC Ecuador | INEC — Visualizador de Nombres y Apellidos, per-token query API (1900–2024) | 2024 | 106 | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 62 | #3,159 |
| CO Colombia | Colombia — Función Pública SIGEP II public-servant name corpus (datos.gov.co) | — | 17 | #104 |
| PA Panama | Tribunal Electoral — Boletín, postulaciones for the 5 May 2024 general election | 2024 | 9 | #313 |
Reference works 2
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- 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 Jair mean, and where does it come from?
- Jair is a boy's name of Hebrew origin that means "he shines" or "he's enlightened". Recorded by Biblical Names Compiled Database.
- What are other forms of the name Jair?
- In the etymology graph, Jairo, Yair and Jairus are forms of the same name in other languages.
- How do you pronounce Jair?
- A machine transcription gives /ʒɐiɾ/ (IPA) for Portuguese.
- Is Jair a male or female name?
- Jair is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- In which country does Jair have the most bearers?
- In Brazil, the national register counted about 129 thousand people named Jair, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled jair.
- How common is the name Jair?
- In Brazil, the national register counted 128,980 people named Jair in 2022, about 1 in 1.6 thousand residents.
- How common is Jair compared with other names?
- In Brazil, Jair is the 186th most common given name of 474,894 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Jair?
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/jairThe 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, “Jair” — the 186th most common given name in Brazil. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.