Zai

surname · Latin script

Meaning, in English: extremely skilled; talented

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

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

Zai is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Pakistan than in any other country.

rarermore common
  • MYMalaysia≈1 in 8.7K(inferred from the name graph)
  • IDIndonesia≈1 in 31K
  • AFAfghanistan≈1 in 11K

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.

Pakistan (inferred from the name graph)

≈11,000 people, est.

Sources
88 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 8.7K (inferred from the name graph)

Malaysia, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

from St. Lucia place-name or devotional name

Sources 1

  • Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung

Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.

How Zai is read(measured from records)

Zai is one spelling over 5 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.

  • Indonesian35%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Zai in Indonesian.

  • English13%

    extremely skilled; talented.

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

  • Urdu12%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Zai in Urdu.

  • Chinese6.9%

    nonstandard spelling of zāi

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

  • French6.4%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Zai in French.

The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Zai 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 Zai is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
PK Pakistan—≈11,000 est.≈1 in 22K1Zai19
ID Indonesia—≈8,600 est.≈1 in 31K—Zai88
CN China—≈5,500 est.≈1 in 253K—Zai7
MY Malaysia—≈3,700 est.≈1 in 8.7K—Zai39
AF Afghanistan—≈3,400 est.≈1 in 11K—Zai4
VN Vietnam#861≈660 est.≈1 in 149K—Zai30
SG Singapore—≈290 est.≈1 in 21K—Zai16
US United States—1121 in 3M292Zai18

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; Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) — Form-33 List of Contesting Candidates, 2018 General Election. 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)

Zai is also recorded as 5 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • English surname14 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia

    Languages: English, German

    Also written Žãî, Źai, Zàî, Zäi, Žãï

  • Urdu surname6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Pakistan, India, United States, United Kingdom

    Languages: Urdu, Hindi

    Also written Žąì, Zaį, Žáį, Zäi

  • Spanish surname16 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Zái, Zâï, Zäï, Zaí, Zài

  • a separate name3 spellings in the group

    Also written Zaĭ, Zaï

  • Hebrew given name5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Israel, United States, Malaysia, Philippines

    Also written זאי, Zay, Zài, Zãÿ

48 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)

Zai is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In German, from St. Lucia place-name or devotional name

    as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung

  • ISO 639-3 language code for Isthmus Zapotec.

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

  • In Japanese, Rōmaji transcription of ざい

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

  • In och, To load, carry, pour, fill, conveyance

    as a wordSchuessler, ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese (2007)

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)

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)

FormalYth. Ibu Zai,Dear Ibu Zai, (English)
InformalHalo Zai,Hi Zai, (English)

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 38 sources across 24 countries.

Official registers attesting Zai
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020171#109,993
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010112#147,253
PK PakistanElection Commission of Pakistan (ECP) — Form-33 List of Contesting Candidates, 2018 General Election20181#1,059
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

Reference works 3

  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • 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

How do you pronounce Zai?
A machine transcription gives /za͡ɪ/ (IPA) for Indonesian.
Where does the name Zai come from?
from St. Lucia place-name or devotional name Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
What does the name Zai mean?
In English, extremely skilled; talented.
In which country does Zai have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 11 thousand people named Zai in Pakistan, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled zai.
How common is the name Zai?
In the United States, the national register counted 112 people named Zai in 2010, about 1 in 3.0 million residents.
How common is Zai compared with other names?
In Vietnam, Zai is the 861st most common surname of 62,915 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Zai?

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

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

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, “Zai” — the 861st most common surname in Vietnam. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Zai parses inside a full name →