Saya
given name · Latin script
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Saya is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Kazakhstan than in any other country. Recorded meaning: Rōmaji transcription of さや.
- USUnited States1 in 268K(measured from records)
- KZKazakhstan≈1 in 3.5Kas Сая
- RURussia≈1 in 861Kas Сая
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 Saya 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.
- Kazakhstan (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 155 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 22K (inferred from the name graph)
≈5,500 named Сая, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Malaysia, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Сая in KZ Kazakhstan, RU Russia.
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)
Rōmaji transcription of さや
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Saya 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KZ Kazakhstan | #624 | ≈5,500 est. | ≈1 in 3.5K | 5.1K | Сая | 39 |
| MY Malaysia | — | ≈1,500 est. | ≈1 in 22K | — | Saya | 21 |
| US United States | — | 1,243 | 1 in 268K | 1.2K | Saya | 155 |
| CO Colombia | — | ≈170 est. | ≈1 in 297K | 3 | Saya | 31 |
| RU Russia | — | ≈170 est. | ≈1 in 861K | — | Сая | 74 |
| SE Sweden | — | 108 | 1 in 94K | 108 | — | 12 |
| UY Uruguay | — | 70 | 1 in 48K | 259 | Saya | 19 |
| SG Singapore | — | ≈55 est. | ≈1 in 112K | — | Saya | 8 |
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: Bureau of National Statistics — birth registrations; Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; INE Uruguay — Nombres más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public); INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public); the co-datosgov-candidates register; Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population). 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)
Saya 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 Asturian, skirt
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In bew, I, me, my (first person singular pronoun)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In max, First person singular pronoun: I, me, my
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In ssf, uphill, upstream, in an uphill direction
as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0
In Filipino, joy; happiness; gladness
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)
- Saya Takagib. 1963JPJapanese actress
- Saya Hidakab. 1975JPJapanese AV idol
- Saya Hozumib. 1988JPJapanese actress (1988-)
- Saya Kamatab. 1988JPJapanese announcer (1988-)
- Saya Tachibanab. 1989JPJapanese AV idol
- Saya Kisaragib. 1989JPJapanese actress
- Saya Horigomeb. 1992JPJapanese actress and voice actress
- Saya Asakurab. 1992JPJapanese singer-songwriter
- Saya Aizawab. 1999JPJapanese voice actress
- Saya IchikawaJPJapanese model and newscaster
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 65 sources across 34 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 455 | #49,823 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 415 | #50,362 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 389 | #50,468 |
| UY Uruguay | INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public) | — | 259 | — |
Reference works 5
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Ethiopian name tokens (GitHub lehagere/ethiopian-names, 40/60 condominium list)
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 Saya mean, and where does it come from?
- Rōmaji transcription of さや Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- Is Saya a male or female name?
- Saya is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- In which country does Saya have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 5.5 thousand people named Сая in Kazakhstan, more than in any other country we hold.
- How common is the name Saya?
- In the United States, the national register counted 1,243 people named Saya in 2020, about 1 in 268 thousand residents.
- How common is Saya compared with other names?
- In Kazakhstan, Saya is the 624th most common given name of 274,628 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Saya?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/sayaThe same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use; a free API key gives 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, “Saya” — the 624th most common given name in Kazakhstan. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.