Udaya
given name · Latin script
Meaning: King of Ceylon, Udaya IV (A.c
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Udaya is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Sri Lanka than in any other country.
- USUnited States1 in 849K(measured from records)
- LKSri Lanka≈1 in 1.5K
- NPNepal≈1 in 4.4K
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.
- Sri Lanka (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 161 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.5K (inferred from the name graph)
≈15,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Sri Lanka, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
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)
King of Ceylon, Udaya IV (A.c. 945–953), friend of Sena III and his yuvarāja; succeeded Sena and repulsed the Coḷas; cited in CvA iii. 128, 39 ff.; Cv. Trs. I. 177, n. 2; Bp. Sey. ii. 59; CvA iv. 48.
Sources 1
- Dictionary of Pali Proper Names Vol I (A-Dh)
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Udaya 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LK Sri Lanka | #153 | ≈15,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.5K | — | Udaya | 65 |
| NP Nepal | — | ≈6,900 est. | ≈1 in 4.4K | — | Udaya | 51 |
| ID Indonesia | — | ≈1,900 est. | ≈1 in 137K | — | Udaya | 49 |
| US United States | — | 392 | 1 in 849K | 274 | Udaya | 161 |
| AE United Arab Emirates | — | ≈350 est. | ≈1 in 28K | — | Udaya | 23 |
| QA Qatar | #948 | ≈190 est. | ≈1 in 13K | — | Udaya | 10 |
| KW Kuwait | — | ≈130 est. | ≈1 in 23K | — | Udaya | 9 |
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 — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex. 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)
Udaya 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 pi, King of Ceylon, Udaya III (A.c. 934–937), son of Mahinda and Kittī/Kittā; first yuvarāja of Dappula IV; cited in Cv. III. 4, 13 ff.; Cv. Trs. I. 172, n. 5 and 174, n. 6.
as a nameDictionary of Pali Proper Names Vol I (A-Dh)
In pi, King of Ceylon, Udaya II (A.c. 885–896), younger brother of Sena II and later his yuvarāja; cited in Cv. II. 63, 90 ff.; Cv. Trs. I. 156, n. 4.
as a nameDictionary of Pali Proper Names Vol I (A-Dh)
In pi, Prince of Haṃsavatī; Tissa Buddha preached first sermon to him and Brahmadeva, and he became a chief disciple. Bu.xviii.21; JA.40; BuA.189.
as a nameDictionary of Pali Proper Names Vol I (A-Dh)
In pi, The Bodhisatta as king of Benares, who renounced his kingdom and became an ascetic after hearing Aḍḍhamāsaka's story. J.iii.444 ff.
as a nameDictionary of Pali Proper Names Vol I (A-Dh)
In pi, King of Ceylon, Udaya I (A.c. 792–797), also called Dappula; son of Mahinda II; cited in Cv. xlix. 1 ff.; Cv. Trs. I. 126, n. 1.
as a nameDictionary of Pali Proper Names Vol I (A-Dh)
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)
- Chi. Udaya Shankarb. 1934INIndian Kannada lyricist (1934-1993)
- Udaya Weerakoonb. 1960LKbadminton player
- Udaya Kumar Dharmalingamb. 1978INIndian academic and designer
- Udaya Bhanub. 1980INIndian actress
- Udaya ShankarUScomputer scientist
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 14 sources across 7 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 274 | #24,534 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 118 | #24,534 |
Reference works 1
- 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
- Where does the name Udaya come from?
- King of Ceylon, Udaya IV (A.c. 945–953), friend of Sena III and his yuvarāja; succeeded Sena and repulsed the Coḷas; cited in CvA iii. 128, 39 ff.; Cv. Trs. I. 177, n. 2; Bp. Sey. ii. 59; CvA iv. 48. Recorded by Dictionary of Pali Proper Names Vol I (A-Dh).
- What does the name Udaya mean?
- Recorded meaning: King of Ceylon, Udaya IV (A.c.
- Is Udaya a male or female name?
- Udaya is a male 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 Udaya have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 15 thousand people named Udaya in Sri Lanka, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled udaya.
- How common is the name Udaya?
- In the United States, the national register counted 392 people named Udaya in 2020, about 1 in 849 thousand residents.
- How common is Udaya compared with other names?
- In Sri Lanka, Udaya is the 153rd most common given name of 14,062 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Udaya?
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/udayaThe 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, “Udaya” — the 153rd most common given name in Sri Lanka. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.