Pain

Spellings & scripts●(measured from records)

Locally spelled Paine in US United States, GB United Kingdom, IN India and 1 more and Payne in KP North Korea.

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)

Attested across 14 languages in the etymology graph.

How Pain is read●(measured from records)

Pain is one spelling over 3 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 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.

• French36%

  bread

  as a word·kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  de pain, surnom d’un boulanger

  as a name·Dictionnaire des noms de famille du Canada français. Anthroponymie et généalogie. 2e édition

• English22%

  from OFr Paien < Lat paganus ‘villager, rustic; heathen’; first attested Edmund filius Pagen 1086 Domesday Book (Somerset)

  as a name·A Dictionary of English Surnames

  kpalé-hii; to be in pain, gbaléngo—contr. gbaéngo, yagbaléngo, and yagbaéhgo; pain in the region of the heam, ndi- gbalé; pain in the side, kaka-gbalé; pain in the body, kaht-gbalé; pain in the abdomen, kohi- gbalé; pain through indi- gestion, geémbé

  as a word·Vocabulary of the Mende Language

  An ache or bodily suffering, or an instance of this; an unpleasant sensation, resulting from a derangement of functions, disease, or injury by violence; hurt.

  as a word·kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

• Hindi18%

  No dictionary in our sources glosses Pain in Hindi.

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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.

Often considered alongside

Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Pain, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.

• Ass
• America
• King
• John
• English
• Anna

From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.

Other names spelled this way◐(inferred from the name graph)

Pain is also recorded as 6 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

• Hindi surname31 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in India, United States, United Kingdom, Bangladesh

  Languages: Hindi, Bangla, Urdu

  Also written Pyne, পাইন, Paine, Paain, Painu

• English surname12 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, Australia, India

  Languages: English, German, Dutch

  Also written Päïñ, Païn, Pàìn, Pãïñ, Päìñ

• Spanish surname6 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Brazil, Argentina, United States, Peru

  Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

  Also written Paín, Pàin, Pa-In, Paîn

• a separate name4 spellings in the group

  Also written Paĭn, Paiṅ, Païn

• Thai surname39 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Thailand, India, United States, Laos

  Languages: Thai, Lao

  Also written บางปะอิน, ผาอินทร์, ปาอินทร์, พาอินทร์, Phain

• Swahili surname3 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Kenya, United States, India, United Kingdom

  Also written Pàíñ

50 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)

Pain is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

• In gdd, woman; wife; female (also said of plants like papaya, etc.)

  as a word·Austronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0

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)

• Thomas Paineb. 1737USAmerican Founding Father, philosopher, and political activist (1737–1809)
• James Painb. 1779GBBritish architect (1779-1877)
• Barry Painb. 1864GBBritish writer (1864-1928)
• Edward Painb. 1925AUAustralian rower
• Didier Painb. 1947FRFrench actor
• Frankie Painb. 1953FRFrench actress
• Jeff Painb. 1970CAskeleton racer
• Hélène Laporteb. 1978FRnot in their usual nameFrench politician (born 1978)
• Connor Painb. 1993AUAustralian footballer
• Mélanie Painb. 2000FRFrench indie pop singer from Caen

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)

Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.

Frequently asked questions

What are other forms of the name Pain?

In the etymology graph, Bánh is a form of the same name in other languages.

Where does the name Pain come from?

from OFr Paien < Lat paganus ‘villager, rustic; heathen’; first attested Edmund filius Pagen 1086 Domesday Book (Somerset) Recorded by A Dictionary of English Surnames.

How do you pronounce Pain?

A machine transcription gives /pɛŋ/ (IPA) for French.

What does the name Pain mean?

In French, bread

In which country does Pain have the most bearers?

In the United States, the national register counted about 143 thousand people named Payne, more than in any other country we hold.

How common is the name Pain?

In India, the national register counted 10,050 people named Pain, about 1 in 132 thousand residents.

How common is Pain compared with other names?

In North Korea, Pain is the 165th most common surname of 2,439 surnames recorded there.