Kwai
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Alternative form of kuai (“yuan, Chinese currency”)
Used for both men and women· registers list it under both sexes; no split published
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 9 countries
/kwai/(machine-generated) Malay · model-generated · uncertain
Kwai is a given name used for both men and women, written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Malaysia than in any other country.
- HKHong Kong≈1 in 1.2Kfew records(inferred from the name graph)
- MYMalaysia≈1 in 5.3K
- SGSingapore≈1 in 27Kfew records
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Countries with no figure are shown too: flat where a national register lists the name without counting it, hatched where only our records hold it. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Malaysia (inferred from the name graph)
- Record sources
- 151 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.2K (inferred from the name graph)
≈6,700 people, est.
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Hong Kong, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)Alternative form of kuai (“yuan, Chinese currency”).
Cited for this meaning 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Kwai 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MY Malaysia | — | ≈6,700 est. | ≈1 in 5.3K | — | Kwai | 39 |
| HK Hong Kong | #348 | ≈6,500 est. | ≈1 in 1.2K | — | Kwai | 57 |
| US United States | — | 643 | 1 in 517K | 422 | Kwai | 151 |
| BR Brazil | — | ≈380 est. | ≈1 in 561K | 36 | — | 1 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈220 est. | ≈1 in 310K | — | Kwai | 66 |
| SG Singapore | — | ≈220 est. | ≈1 in 27K | — | Kwai | 37 |
| CA Canada | — | ≈190 est. | ≈1 in 218K | — | Kwai | 41 |
| AU Australia | — | ≈160 est. | ≈1 in 168K | 1 | Kwai | 43 |
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; SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present); IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname). 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)Kwai 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 lgl, water
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In mch, through, by; indicates motion by way of an aquatic object
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In llu, spouse; husband or wife
as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0
In kwd, river water
as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0
In hts, warthog
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)- Kong Guib. 656not in their usual nameTang dynasty person CBDB=140439
- Zhuge GuiCNnot in their usual nameChinese politician
- Chen GuiCNnot in their usual nameLate 2nd century Eastern Han official
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)15 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 9 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 36 | #131,575 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, voter-file supplement (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 3
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
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 Kwai mean, and where does it come from?
- Alternative form of kuai (“yuan, Chinese currency”). Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Kwai?
- In Malay /kwai/. Transcriptions are machine-generated except where a dictionary is named.
- Is Kwai a male or female name?
- Kwai is used for both men and women. National registers that list it by sex count it under both: United States (Census Bureau, 2020). We don't publish a percentage split.
- In which country does Kwai have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 6.7 thousand people named Kwai in Malaysia, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled kwai.
- How common is the name Kwai?
- In the United States, the national register counted 643 people named Kwai in 2020, about 1 in 517 thousand residents.
- How common is Kwai compared with other names?
- In Hong Kong, Kwai is the 348th most common given name of 23,276 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Kwai?
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/kwaiThe 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, “Kwai” — the 348th most common given name in Hong Kong. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.