Say

surname · English · Latin script

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

Say is a surname, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. It appears chiefly in and Turkish, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: from Sai (Orne); first attested Jordan de Sai 1161 Eynsham (Oxfordshire).

rarermore common
  • INIndia1 in 1.5M◐
  • NONorway1 in 64K
  • USUnited States1 in 101K

carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.

≈4.7K ●

across 14 countries

Sources
6 ●

0 records

Derived

1 in 64K ◐

Norway

Meaning & origin●

from Sai (Orne); first attested Jordan de Sai 1161 Eynsham (Oxfordshire)

Sources 1

  • A Dictionary of English Surnames

Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world●

Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.

Where Say is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States3,3020 rec.1 in 101K6.2KSay6
IN India8590 rec.1 in 1.5M859Say3
AR Argentina104—1 in 437K104——
NO Norway86—1 in 64K86——
NL Netherlands760 rec.1 in 227K76—1
FR France68—1 in 998K68——
BE Belgium640 rec.1 in 183K64—1
BR Brazil57—1 in 3.7M57——
FI Finland47—1 in 119K51——
TR Türkiye350 rec.——Say2
CH Switzerland330 rec.1 in 255K33—1
ES Spain290 rec.1 in 1.7M29—1

Roughly 3.3K people in United States bear this name (about 1 in 101K). Estimates project the name's share of our records onto national population, so each is only as good as the record base beside it — the Basis column gives that base; rows marked △ rest on fewer records than the estimate itself and are order-of-magnitude at best.

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.

Languages●

  • 45K27%
  • Turkish33K20%
  • Hindi28K17%
  • English23K14%
  • Spanish5.3K3%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
44,75427%
Turkish32,79620%
Hindi27,93017%
English22,88314%
Spanish5,2653%

Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.

Other names spelled this way◐

Say is also recorded as 7 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • English given name38K records spelled Say170 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, United States, Australia, Malaysia

    Languages: English, German, Dutch

    Also written Sai, Zay, Saey, Şay, Säy

  • Turkish surname33K records spelled Say11 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Türkiye, India, United States, Netherlands

    Languages: Turkish, Turkmen

    Also written Şay, Şąý, Säy, Sãy, Şäý

  • Hindi surname32K records spelled Say7 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, United States, Malaysia, Türkiye

    Languages: Hindi, Urdu

    Also written Şaý, Sây, Şay, Sâÿ

  • Spanish surname9.1K records spelled Say24 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Guatemala, United States, Philippines, Argentina

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Säy, Şay, Säÿ, Sáy, Šåÿ

  • Khmer surname6.7K records spelled Say5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, United States, Cambodia, Singapore

    Also written Sāy, Sầy, Sáy, Sây

  • French surname5.3K records spelled Say15 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, Côte d’Ivoire, United States, Philippines

    Languages: French, Catalan

    Also written Sãÿ, Sāy, Sây, Śăy, Saÿ

  • Indonesian surname3.3K records spelled Say2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines

    Also written Şay

50 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●

Say 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 Turkish, second-person singular imperative of saymak

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

  • In English, To pronounce.

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

  • In Turkish, 1. Düz, tabaka biçiminde, ince yassı taş. 2. İri, büyük kaya. 3. Arkadaş 4. Su kaynağı. 5. Elçi.

    as a wordTDK Kişi Adları Sözlüğü (official Turkish given-name dictionary)

  • In English, v., ndé, 1é; yia, ye, saith, said

    as a wordVocabulary of the Mende Language

  • In egy, Manuel de Codage transliteration of šꜥy.

    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.

Over time●

0510152020102015202019 · 2010

Show as table
Say in SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023), Sweden, 2006–2020
Yearrecords
200610
200712
200815
200916
201019
201119
201219
201319
201419
201519
201619
201719
201819
201919
202018

SE SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) — 15 years between 2006–2020. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

1700180019002000Benjamin Say, b. 1755Jean-Baptiste Say, b. 1767Thomas Say, b. 1787Léon Say, b. 1826Marie Say, b. 1857Jimmy Say, b. 1862Calvin Say, b. 1952Fazıl Say, b. 1970Rick Say, b. 1979Ahmet Uğur Say, b. 1986
  • Benjamin Sayb. 1755USAmerican politician
  • Jean-Baptiste Sayb. 1767FRFrench economist and businessman (1767–1832)
  • Thomas Sayb. 1787USAmerican naturalist (1787-1834)
  • Léon Sayb. 1826FRFrench politician (1826-1896)
  • Marie Sayb. 1857FRFrench heiress and socialite (1857–1943)
  • Jimmy Sayb. 1862USAmerican baseball player
  • Calvin Sayb. 1952USAmerican politician
  • Fazıl Sayb. 1970TRTurkish composer and pianist (born 1970)
  • Rick Sayb. 1979CACanadian swimmer, Olympic athlete, world championships silver medallist
  • Ahmet Uğur Sayb. 1986TRTurkish actor (born 1986)

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●

Attested in 41 sources across 24 countries.

Official registers attesting Say
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 202020206.2K#5,430
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 201020103.3K#9,803
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 200020002.1K#13,112
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020916#8,496
IN IndiaInstate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls—859#6,172
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020789#8,496
CI Côte d’Ivoirenomprenoms.ci — ranked Ivorian surname frequencies—266#1,682
IN IndiaInstate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls—265#142
AR ArgentinaRENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national)—104—
NO NorwaySSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population)—86#17,568
NL NetherlandsCBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007)200776#23,521
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)199168—

Reference works 3

  • The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • 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 2026-09-12 data build · 236 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Say?
We estimate roughly 4.7 thousand people bear Say (counting its spellings and scripts) across 14 countries in our records.
In which country does Say have the most bearers?
We estimate about 3.3 thousand people bear Say in the United States, more than in any other country in our records, where it is most often spelled say.
Where is Say most common?
Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Say is densest in Norway — about 1 in 64 thousand people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
What does the name Say mean?
Recorded meaning: from Sai (Orne); first attested Jordan de Sai 1161 Eynsham (Oxfordshire)
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/say

The 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. Bulk access and licensing.

About this data

● measured from records◐ inferred from the name graph○ machine-generated

Data snapshot . Figures are rebuilt periodically and will change.

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, “Say”. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Say parses inside a full name →