Payen
surname · Latin script
Meaning: du nom latin Pāgānus, dérivé de pāgus « village »
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/pɛjɛ̃/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Payen is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in France than in any other country.
- FRFrance≈1 in 9K(inferred from the name graph)
- HTHaiti≈1 in 5.3K
- KNSt. Kitts & Nevis1 in 13K
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.
- France (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 261 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 5.3K (inferred from the name graph)
≈7,600 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Haiti, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
du nom latin Pāgānus, dérivé de pāgus « village »
Sources 1
- Dictionnaire des noms de famille du Canada français. Anthroponymie et généalogie. 2e édition
Where in the world(measured from records)
Payen 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FR France | #522 | ≈7,600 est. | ≈1 in 9K | 1K | Payen | 261 |
| HT Haiti | #566 | ≈2,100 est. | ≈1 in 5.3K | — | Payen | 7 |
| US United States | — | 627 | 1 in 531K | 824 | Payen | 95 |
| BE Belgium | — | 595 | 1 in 20K | 595 | Payen | 37 |
| PH Philippines | — | ≈430 est. | ≈1 in 254K | — | Payen | 6 |
| KN St. Kitts & Nevis | — | 4 | 1 in 13K | 4 | — | — |
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: INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000); Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register); St Kitts & Nevis — Register of Electors 2026. 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)
Payen 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 Cebuano, Ardisia confertiflora; a tree or shrub endemic to Mindoro, the Babuyan islands and Batanes in the Philippines
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In enm, to pay
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In frm, Pagan
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)
- Nicolas Payenb. 1512BEfranco-Flemish composer
- Louis Payenb. 1640FRFrench settler
- Anselme Payenb. 1795FRFrench chemist (1795–1871)
- Auguste Payenb. 1801BEBelgian architect (1801-1877)
- Léopold Payenb. 1830FRFrench architect (1830-1911)
- Nicolas Roland Payenb. 1914FRFrench engineer (1914–2004)
- Michel Payenb. 1915FRFrench association football player (1915-2002)
- Pascal Payen-Appenzellerb. 1944FRFrench radio program boss
- Marie Payenb. 1974FRFrench actress
- Cyril PayenFRFrench journalist
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 20 sources across 12 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1951 | 1.3K | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1961 | 1.3K | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1971 | 1.1K | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1981 | 1.1K | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1941 | 1.1K | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1991 | 1K | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1921 | 999 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1931 | 856 | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 824 | #30,365 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1911 | 725 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1901 | 720 | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 627 | #35,812 |
Reference works 4
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- 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
- How do you pronounce Payen?
- A machine transcription gives /pɛjɛ̃/ (IPA) for French.
- What does the name Payen mean?
- Recorded meaning: du nom latin Pāgānus, dérivé de pāgus « village »
- In which country does Payen have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 7.6 thousand people named Payen in France, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled payen.
- How common is the name Payen?
- In the United States, the national register counted 627 people named Payen in 2010, about 1 in 531 thousand residents.
- How common is Payen compared with other names?
- In France, Payen is the 522nd most common surname of 1,200,812 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Payen?
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/payenThe 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, “Payen” — the 522nd most common surname in France. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.