Lai
Lai is the 1,614th most common surname in the United States, shared by 21,611 people at the 2020 census. That is about one person in 13,800.
By the numbers
- People
- 21,611
- Rank
- 1,614th
- How common
- 1 in 13,800
- Per 100,000
- 7.2
Where the name comes from
Origin Chinese
From Chinese (Mandarin: lài, Cantonese: laai<sup>6</sup>, Hakka: lai).
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Who bears the name
How people with the surname Lai described their own race and Hispanic origin at the 2020 census:
Notable people called Lai
- Lai Ching-te (born 1959)16th President of Taiwan (ROC) since 2024
- Jimmy Lai (born 1947)Hong Kong businessman and activist
- Francis Lai (1932–2018)Academy Award-winning French composer
- Leon Lai (born 1966)Hong Kong singer and actor
- José Lai (born 1946)Roman Catholic bishop
- Gigi Lai (born 1971)Hong Kong actor and singer
- Lai Runming (born 1963)weightlifter
- Lai Pin-yu (born 1992)Taiwanese social activist and politician
People named Lai with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Surnames like Lai
Try it on yourself
Source: US Census Bureau, Frequently Occurring Surnames, 2020. The Census describes the file as the surnames borne by 100 or more people; rarer names are not published. The line is not quite exact, and 617 published names come in under it, the smallest at 92 people. Race and Hispanic origin are self-reported. Rates are worked out against the 298.9 million people the file's own figures are calculated on, which is fewer than the census counted in all: the difference is everyone whose surname was too rare to publish.