Wais
surname · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˈweɪz/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Wais is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Afghanistan than in any other country. In Djibouti it is the 13th most common surname. Recorded meaning: From German Weiss.
- DJDjibouti≈1 in 1K(inferred from the name graph)
- AFAfghanistan≈1 in 17K
- ATAustria≈1 in 26K
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.
- Afghanistan (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 165 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.0K (inferred from the name graph)
≈2,200 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Djibouti, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
- GermanWeiss(measured from records)
- Middle High GermanwTz(inferred from the name graph)via Weiss
Steps marked ◐ come from the entry for the form named above them, not from this name's own sources.
From German Weiss.
Sources 1
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Wais 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AF Afghanistan | — | ≈2,200 est. | ≈1 in 17K | 1 | Wais | 21 |
| DJ Djibouti | #13 | ≈890 est. | ≈1 in 1K | 3 | Wais | 9 |
| IQ Iraq | — | ≈560 est. | ≈1 in 69K | — | Wais | 14 |
| SY Syria | — | ≈550 est. | ≈1 in 36K | 1 | Wais | 9 |
| DE Germany | — | ≈490 est. | ≈1 in 162K | — | Wais | 71 |
| PL Poland | — | 430 | 1 in 89K | 217 | — | 2 |
| AT Austria | — | ≈350 est. | ≈1 in 26K | — | Wais | 48 |
| NO Norway | — | 86 | 1 in 64K | 86 | — | 11 |
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: Wikidata humans by citizenship — given & family names; dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); Wikidata humans by citizenship — given & family names; Journal Officiel — Decret 2023-028, listes des candidats (legislatives 2023). 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)
Wais 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 Filipino, crafty; skillful; clever; sharp; wise
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)
- Julio Wais Sanmartínb. 1878ESSpanish politician (1878-1954)
- Gustav Waisb. 1883DEGerman journalist (1883-1961)
- Alfred Waisb. 1905DEGerman painter (1905-1988)
- Ruth Waisb. 1905DEPh.D. Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen 1935
- Kurt Waisb. 1907DEGerman romanist (1907–1995)
- Hildegard Waisb. 1909ATAustrian writer (1909-1986)
- Josef Waisb. 1944ATAustrian photographer
- Yossi Waisb. 1951ILIsraeli mechanical engineer
- Mir Wais Hosseinib. 1955FRFrench chemist
- Ahmad Waisb. 1991SYSyrian cyclist
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 41 sources across 24 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 217 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 217 | #14,985 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 213 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 213 | #15,526 |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 86 | #17,590 |
| DJ Djibouti | Journal Officiel — Decret 2023-028, listes des candidats (legislatives 2023) | 2023 | 3 | #8 |
| SY Syria | Wikidata humans by citizenship — given & family names | — | 1 | #365 |
Reference works 4
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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
- Hoffman, Polish Surnames: Origins and Meanings (2nd ed., 2012)
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 Wais mean, and where does it come from?
- From German Weiss. Recorded by Wiktionary.
- How do you pronounce Wais?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈweɪz/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Wais have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 2.2 thousand people named Wais in Afghanistan, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled wais.
- How common is the name Wais?
- In Poland, the national register counted 430 people named Wais in 2026, about 1 in 89 thousand residents.
- How common is Wais compared with other names?
- In Djibouti, Wais is the 13th most common surname of 79 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Wais?
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/waisThe 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, “Wais” — the 13th most common surname in Djibouti. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.