Lai

surname · Latin script

Meaning, in English: A mostly North European medieval form of lyrical, narrative poem written in octosyllabic couplets that often deals with tales of adventure and romance, with stanzas that do not repeat

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

Lai is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Hong Kong it is the 37th most common surname.

rarermore common
  • HKHong Kong≈1 in 86(inferred from the name graph)
  • MYMalaysia≈1 in 415
  • SGSingapore≈1 in 949

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.

China (inferred from the name graph)

≈980,000 people, est.

Sources
438 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 86 (inferred from the name graph)

Hong Kong, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

from Slavic laz 'untilled field, clearing'

Sources 1

  • Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung

Attested across 6 languages in the etymology graph.

How Lai is read(measured from records)

Lai is one spelling over 4 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 3 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.

  • English47%

    A mostly North European medieval form of lyrical, narrative poem written in octosyllabic couplets that often deals with tales of adventure and romance, with stanzas that do not repeat.

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • Chinese16%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Lai in Chinese.

  • Vietnamese9.6%

    short for lai giống (“to crossbreed”)

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • Malay9.2%

    a surname from Hakka

    as a wordrecorded as Indonesiankaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Lai 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 Lai is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
CN China—≈980,000 est.≈1 in 1.4K—Lai102
HK Hong Kong#37≈84,000 est.≈1 in 86—Lai135
MY Malaysia#79≈79,000 est.≈1 in 415—Lai140
US United States—19,1571 in 17K22KLai438
SG Singapore#73≈6,500 est.≈1 in 949—Lai158
AU Australia#332≈6,300 est.≈1 in 4K1Lai208

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; SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present). 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)

Lai is also recorded as 5 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • a separate name5 spellings in the group

    Also written Laí, Lại, Laĭ, Laï

  • a separate surname18 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, United States, China, Malaysia

    Also written Lại, Lài, L̛̎̿̒̏̋̂́̃͛͆͘͝ạ̛̏͆͂̉́̽̆̈́̎̃̿͘͝i̔̀̓̌̑̒̒̉̀̊͑̚̕͠, ̶̲̅l̶̲̅a̶̲̅i̶̲̅, Läî

  • Hindi surname11 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, Malaysia, United States, Hong Kong

    Languages: Hindi, Urdu

    Also written Lái, Lài, Laí, Låi, Lại

  • Indonesian surname6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Malaysia, Indonesia, United States, Hong Kong

    Also written Lai', Lại, Lái, Lāí

  • Portuguese surname5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Brazil, United States, Hong Kong, Malaysia

    Also written Laí, Làï, Lái, Lại

76 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.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Lai is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In German, from Slavic laz 'untilled field, clearing'

    as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung

  • dialect variant of the personal name Lew ‘lion’ (see Lew 2).

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

  • from the name of a state called Lai (in present-day Henan province), which existed during the Spring and Autumn period (722-481 BC). Descendants of the ruling class of this state adopted its name as their surname.

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

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)

1850190019502000Li Yuanhong, b. 1864Li Jinhui, b. 1891Li Minwei, b. 1893Lai He, b. 1894Francis Lai, b. 1932Jimmy Lai, b. 1947Lai Ching-te, b. 1959Leon Lai, b. 1966Gigi Lai, b. 1971Megan Lai, b. 1979
  • Li Yuanhongb. 1864CNnot in their usual nameChinese general and politician (1864-1928)
  • Li Jinhuib. 1891CNnot in their usual nameChinese musician (1891-1967)
  • Li Minweib. 1893JPnot in their usual nameChinese actor and director (1893–1953)
  • Lai Heb. 1894Taiwanese poet, novelist, social activist (1894–1943)
  • Francis Laib. 1932FRAcademy Award-winning French composer
  • Jimmy Laib. 1947CNHong Kong businessman and activist (born 1947)
  • Lai Ching-teb. 1959TW16th President of Taiwan (ROC) since 2024
  • Leon Laib. 1966CNHong Kong singer and actor
  • Gigi Laib. 1971CNHong Kong actor and singer
  • Megan Laib. 1979TWTaiwanese actress and singer

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).

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 70 sources across 33 countries.

Official registers attesting Lai
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020202022K#1,614
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010201019K#1,873
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000200015K#2,148

Reference works 8

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

Where does the name Lai come from?
from Slavic laz 'untilled field, clearing' Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
What does the name Lai mean?
In English, A mostly North European medieval form of lyrical, narrative poem written in octosyllabic couplets that often deals with tales of adventure and romance, with stanzas that do not repeat.
In which country does Lai have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 981 thousand people named Lai in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled lai.
How common is the name Lai?
In the United States, the national register counted 19,157 people named Lai in 2010, about 1 in 17 thousand residents.
How common is Lai compared with other names?
In Hong Kong, Lai is the 37th most common surname of 8,142 surnames recorded there.

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/lai

The 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, “Lai” — the 37th most common surname in Hong Kong. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Lai parses inside a full name →