Makai
given name · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Makai is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. Recorded meaning: seaward, towards the sea.
- USUnited States1 in 65K(measured from records)
- PGPapua New Guinea≈1 in 194K
- KEKenya≈1 in 390K
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.
- United States (measured from records)
- Sources
- 153 (measured from records)
- 1 in 65K (inferred from the name graph)
5,117 people, 2020
Highest-authority source
United States
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
seaward, towards the sea.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Makai 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | 5,117 | 1 in 65K | 4.8K | Makai | 153 |
| KE Kenya | ≈140 est. | ≈1 in 390K | — | Makai | 7 |
| NG Nigeria | ≈110 est. | ≈1 in 1.9M | — | Makai | 5 |
| ZA South Africa | ≈54 est. | ≈1 in 1M | — | Makai | 7 |
| PG Papua New Guinea | ≈37 est. | ≈1 in 194K | 2 | — | 1 |
| SE Sweden | 9 | 1 in 1.1M | 9 | — | — |
5,117 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. 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; Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); PNG Election Results Database — candidate names (1972–2022). 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)
Makai 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 iba, to eat (consume)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In hwc, towards the sea
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Basque, "Servicio de mesa" Lar .
as a wordOrotariko Euskal Hiztegia (OEH) — General/Historical Basque Dictionary, Euskaltzaindia
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)
- Makai Danielb. 1985NGNigerian academic
- Makai Masonb. 1995USGerman-American basketball player (born 1996)
- Makai Holdenerb. 1997CHSwiss ice hockey player
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 34 sources across 20 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 111 | #148,665 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 107 | #152,628 |
| PG Papua New Guinea | PNG Election Results Database — candidate names (1972–2022) | — | 2 | #34 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 2
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
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
- Is Makai a male or female name?
- Makai 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.
- What does the name Makai mean, and where does it come from?
- seaward, towards the sea. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- What are other forms of the name Makai?
- In the etymology graph, Mekhi is a form of the same name in other languages.
- How common is the name Makai?
- In the United States, the national register counted 5,117 people named Makai in 2020, about 1 in 65 thousand residents.
- In which country does Makai have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 5.1 thousand people named Makai, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled makai.
- Where is Makai most common?
- Makai is densest in the United States, where the national register counts about 1 in 65 thousand people carrying it.
What do you want to know about Makai?
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/makaiThe same 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), 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, “Makai”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.