Takai

surname · Latin script

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

/təkaɪ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Takai is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. Recorded meaning: Borrowed from Japanese 高井.

rarermore common
  • USUnited States1 in 759K(measured from records)
  • DKDenmark1 in 1.2M
  • BRBrazil1 in 1.5M

carrying the name, as counted by each country's national register. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

United States (measured from records)

438 people, 2010

Sources
126 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 759K (inferred from the name graph)

United States

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

Borrowed from Japanese 高井.

Sources 1

Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Takai 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.

Where Takai is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States4381 in 759K438Takai126
BR Brazil1381 in 1.5M138—2
DK Denmark51 in 1.2M5——
CH Switzerland41 in 2.1M4—3
SE Sweden21 in 5.1M2——

438 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. 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; IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Takai is also recorded as 3 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Chinese given name2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Taiwan, China

    Also written Ta-Kai

  • Arabic surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, United States

    Also written Tàkàî

  • Thai given name37 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Thailand, Japan, United States, Laos

    Languages: Thai, Japanese, Lao

    Also written Take, Takashi, ทาคาชิ, Takeshi, ทาเคชิ

41 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)

Takai 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 Latvian, dative singular of taka

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In Māori, to wrap up, wrap round

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In jpx-pro, bamboo

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In cja, foot

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In Basque, ( Lar → H ). "Tapón, takaia, zipotza " Lar . "Tapador, género de tapa" Ib. . "Gros bouchon, bondon" H . v. tapoi.

    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)

192019401960198020002020Nobuo Takai, b. 1937Kazunobu Takai, b. 1940Mamiko Takai, b. 1966Mark Takai, b. 1967Takashi Takai, b. 1969Fernanda Takai, b. 1971Miho Takai, b. 1971Yuhei Takai, b. 1984Kazuma Takai, b. 1994Kota Takai, b. 2004

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)

FormalTakai様Dear Takai-san, (English)
Informalこんにちは、TakaiさんHi Takai, (English)

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 18 sources across 11 countries.

Official registers attesting Takai
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010438#48,256
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020414#53,865
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000342#55,971
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—138#49,506
DK DenmarkDanmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts)—5#61,738
CH SwitzerlandBFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames)20244#118,617
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—2#68,848
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

Reference works 2

  • Wikipedia surname tokens
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)

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 Takai mean, and where does it come from?
Borrowed from Japanese 高井. Recorded by Wiktionary.
How do you pronounce Takai?
A machine transcription gives /təkaɪ/ (IPA) for Japanese.
In which country does Takai have the most bearers?
In the United States, the national register counted about 438 people named Takai, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled takai.
Where is Takai most common?
Takai is densest in the United States, where the national register counts about 1 in 759 thousand people carrying it.
How common is the name Takai?
In the United States, the national register counted 438 people named Takai in 2010, about 1 in 759 thousand residents.

What do you want to know about Takai?

Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.

Please leave out anyone's personal details (see Privacy).

Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/takai

The 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, “Takai”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Takai parses inside a full name →