Mai

Mai is the 1,630th most common surname in the United States, shared by 21,383 people at the 2020 census. That is about one person in 14,000.

By the numbers

People: 21,383
Rank: 1,630th
How common: 1 in 14,000
Per 100,000: 7.2

Where the name comes from

Origin Chinese

Chinese surname with several origins:.

Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Who bears the name

How people with the surname Mai described their own race and Hispanic origin at the 2020 census:

Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 88.3%
White, not Hispanic 8.2%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 1.9%
Hispanic or Latino 1.1%
Black, not Hispanic 0.4%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.09%

Notable people called Mai

Karl Mai (1928–1993)German footballer
Lars Lukas Mai (born 2000)German footballer
Murakami Mai (born 1996)Japanese artistic gymnast
Angelo Mai (1782–1854)Italian cardinal and philologist
Vanessa Mai (born 1992)German singer

People named Mai with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).

Surnames like Mai

Also a first name

Mai has been given to 5,697 American babies as a first name since 1880, peaking in 1990. See it as a given name.

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.