Tai

Tai is the 6,814th most common surname in the United States, shared by 4,753 people at the 2020 census. That is about one person in 62,900.

By the numbers

People: 4,753
Rank: 6,814th
How common: 1 in 62,900
Per 100,000: 1.6

Where the name comes from

Origin Chinese

From the cmn-pinyin romanization of the cmn pronunciation of Chinese 邰 and 斄.

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

Who bears the name

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

Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 86.6%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 5.1%
White, not Hispanic 3.8%
Black, not Hispanic 2.8%
Hispanic or Latino 1.7%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.08%

Notable people called Tai

Tai Tzu-Ying (born 1994)Taiwanese badminton player
Shō Tai (1843–1901)last king of the Ryūkyū Kingdom
Katherine Tai (born 1974)American attorney
Kobe Tai (born 1972)American pornographic actress
Zhou Tai (200–228)General serving warlord Sun Quan (died c.223)
Benny Tai (born 1964)Hong Kong activist and writer
Penny Tai (born 1978)Malaysian singer
Chen Tai (died 260)Chinese general and politician

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

Surnames like Tai

Tait

Also a first name

Tai has been given to 4,937 American babies as a first name since 1922, peaking in 2004. 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.