Wai
given name · Burmese · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Wai is a given name, most frequently recorded in Malaysia. In Hong Kong it is the 20th most common given name. It appears chiefly in Burmese and English, written in the Latin script.
- HKHong Kong1 in 454◐
- MYMalaysia1 in 2K
- SGSingapore1 in 3.7K
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈3.8K ●
- Sources
- 246 ●
- 1 in 30K ◐
across 10 countries
147K records
Official registry-verified
Netherlands
Meaning & origin
No verified etymology recorded for this name yet — the entries below are drawn from usage statistics and the name graph.
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world●
Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MY Malaysia | #106 | 32,690 | 32K rec. | — | — | Wai | 110 |
| AU Australia | #672 | 18,108 | 19K rec. | — | 1 | Wai | 151 |
| HK Hong Kong | #20 | 8,184 | 4.2K rec. | — | — | Wai | 102 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | 5,302 | 5.2K rec. | — | 4 | Wai | 110 |
| CA Canada | — | 3,000 | 3.6K rec. | — | 10 | Wai | 110 |
| SG Singapore | #218 | 2,894 | 3.6K rec. | — | — | Wai | 96 |
| US United States | — | 2,814 | 72K rec. | 1 in 118K | 2.8K | Wai | 246 |
| NL Netherlands | — | 571 | 1.6K rec. | 1 in 30K | 571 | Wai | 38 |
| CN China | — | 537 | 408 rec. | — | — | Wai | 60 |
| JM Jamaica | #355 | 263 | 374 rec. | — | — | Wai | 2 |
| SE Sweden | — | 260△ | 20 rec. | 1 in 39K | 260 | — | 16 |
| BR Brazil | — | 40△ | 4 rec. | 1 in 5.3M | 5K | — | 3 |
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.
Languages●
- Burmese2.8M89%
- English129K4%
- Chinese107K3%
- Malay54K2%
- Hindi10K1%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Burmese | 2,824,106 | 89% |
| English | 129,144 | 4% |
| Chinese | 106,699 | 3% |
| Malay | 54,074 | 2% |
| Hindi | 10,073 | 1% |
Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.
Other recorded senses●
Wai is also recorded in 6 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In cdo, to beat a man until he confesses, as required: :
as a wordDictionary of the Foochow Dialect
In alu, fresh water (as opposed to _āsi_ 'saltwater'); moisture, sap, juice; river
as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0
In kaw, alternative spelling of we (“sun, day”)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In mch, synonym of jüwai (“shaman”)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In apb, water
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Hawaiian, water, liquid of any kind other than sea water; juice, sap, honey; any liquid discharged from the body, as blood, semen; river, stream (in place-names)
as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0
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●
Show as table
| Year | records |
|---|---|
| 1970 | 5 |
| 1971 | 5 |
| 1973 | 7 |
| 1974 | 5 |
| 1976 | 13 |
| 1977 | 15 |
| 1978 | 8 |
| 1979 | 8 |
| 1980 | 8 |
| 1981 | 7 |
| 1982 | 13 |
| 1983 | 11 |
| 1984 | 13 |
| 1985 | 6 |
| 1986 | 13 |
| 1987 | 8 |
| 1988 | 7 |
| 1989 | 10 |
| 1990 | 7 |
| 1992 | 5 |
| 1994 | 7 |
| 1995 | 5 |
| 1997 | 5 |
| 1999 | 5 |
US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 24 years between 1970–1999. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.
Notable people with this name●
- Wu Weib. 1459CNnot in their usual nameChinese painter (1459-1508)
- Wong Waib. 1939CNHong Kong actor
- Du Weib. 1962CNnot in their usual nameAmbassador of China to Israel, Ambassador of China to Ukraine
- Xiaowei Zhuangb. 1972CNnot in their usual nameChinese American biophysicist
- Wang Weib. 1978CNnot in their usual nameChinese baseball player
- Jon M. Chub. 1979USnot in their usual nameAmerican filmmaker
- Yang Weib. 1979CNnot in their usual nameChinese badminton player
- Hu Weib. 1983CNnot in their usual nameChinese filmmaker
- Guo Weib. 1983CNnot in their usual nameChinese short track speed skater
- Pang Weib. 1986CNnot in their usual nameChinese sport shooter
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 52 sources across 28 countries.
Reference works 5
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- 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 2026-09-12 data build · 202 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Wai?
- We estimate roughly 3.8 thousand people bear Wai (counting its spellings and scripts) across 10 countries in our records.
- In which country does Wai have the most bearers?
- Wai is most frequently recorded in Malaysia, where it is most often spelled wai.
- How common is Wai compared with other names?
- In Malaysia, Wai is the 106th most common given name of 325,158 given names recorded there.
- Is Wai a male or female name?
- Wai 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.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/waiThe 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
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, “Wai” — the 106th most common given name in Malaysia. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.