May
surname · Latin script
Meaning: From a nickname/personal name based on May; also from Matthew, Middle English may ‘young person’, or a Jewish name from Yiddish may ‘lilac’
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/meɪ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
May is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- SGSingapore≈1 in 2K(inferred from the name graph)
- LALaos≈1 in 2.2K
- AUAustralia≈1 in 2.2K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than May itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- #742 (measured from records)
- 4 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 558 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 2.0K (inferred from the name graph)
103,306 people, 2010
of 19M surnames
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Singapore, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Mi in US United States, IN India and Mati in LA Laos.
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)
From a nickname/personal name based on May; also from Matthew, Middle English may ‘young person’, or a Jewish name from Yiddish may ‘lilac’.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 28 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
May 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 | #236 | 103,306 | 1 in 3.2K | 103K | Mi | 558 |
| IN India | — | 73,466as Mali | 1 in 18K | 73K | Mi | 67 |
| GB United Kingdom | #156 | ≈28,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.3K | 7 | May | 303 |
| DE Germany | #176 | ≈24,000 est. | ≈1 in 3.3K | listed | May | 197 |
| NP Nepal | — | 19,605as Mali | 1 in 1.5K | 20K | — | — |
| AU Australia | #195 | ≈12,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.2K | 6 | May | 246 |
| LA Laos | — | ≈3,400 est. | ≈1 in 2.2K | — | Mati | 11 |
| SG Singapore | #125 | ≈3,100 est. | ≈1 in 2K | — | May | 122 |
103,306 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010, counting the spelling may. 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; NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present); Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls; Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM); NPHC 2021 — Population by caste/ethnicity group (national), surname-shaped categories only. 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)
May 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 English, from ME may, 'young lad or girl', or a hypocoristic of Matthew via Maheu/Mayhew; first attested William Mai 1167 P (Nf)
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
In German, Short form related to Mei(n)burg; surname type. Bearer counts: Mey- 129, Mei- 121.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen
In German, From the month name May; refers to May customs/seasonal usage. Bearers: 8,848.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen
when not of English origin (see 1-3 above), this is an Anglicized form of Gaelic 6 Miadhaigh ‘descendant of MiadhacF, a personal name or byname meaning ‘honorable’, ‘proud’.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
nickname from Middle English may ‘young man or woman’.
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)
- Karl Mayb. 1842DEGerman writer (1842–1912)
- Billy Mayb. 1916USAmerican composer, arranger and trumpeter (1916–2004)
- Elaine Mayb. 1932USAmerican screenwriter, film director, actress, and comedian (b. 1932)
- Brian Mayb. 1947GBBritish musician (born 1947)
- Mary Simonb. 1947CAnot in their usual nameGovernor General of Canada 2021-2025
- Jeannie Berlinb. 1949USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress
- Theresa Mayb. 1956GBPrime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2016 to 2019
- James Mayb. 1963GBEnglish television presenter and journalist
- Fiona Mayb. 1969GBBritish-born Italian long jumper
- Jodhi Mayb. 1975GBBritish actress
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)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 116 sources across 55 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 103K | #304 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 102K | #270 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 102K | #304 |
| IN India | Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls | — | 11 | #111,448 |
Reference works 9
- 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
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- 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
- 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 May mean, and where does it come from?
- From a nickname/personal name based on May; also from Matthew, Middle English may ‘young person’, or a Jewish name from Yiddish may ‘lilac’. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- What are other forms of the name May?
- In the etymology graph, Miya, Maia and Maie are forms of the same name in other languages.
- How common is the name May?
- In the United States, the national register counted 103,306 people named May in 2010, about 1 in 3.2 thousand residents.
- How common is May compared with other names?
- In the United States, May is the 236th most common surname of 6,282,806 surnames recorded there.
- In which country does May have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 103 thousand people named May, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled mi.
- How do you pronounce May?
- A machine transcription gives /meɪ/ (IPA) for English.
What do you want to know about May?
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/mayThe 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, “May” — the 236th most common surname in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.