Lai

girls:

231 births since 1953

#5485 (4th percentile)

boys:

25 births since 1981

#4561 (0th percentile)

overall:

256 births since 1953

#7483 (3rd percentile)

Popularity Trends

The name Lai is the #7,483 most popular name of all time in the U.S. on a gender-neutral basis, with a total of 256 recorded births since 1953. This represents the 3.3% percentile of name popularity (more popular than 3.3% of all names). For girls, it ranks #5,485 (4.0% percentile) for all time with 231 births since 1953. For boys, it ranks #4,561 (0.5% percentile) for all time with 25 births since 1981.

Lai first appeared in U.S. birth records in 1953 (1953 for girls and 1981 for boys). Birth data for Lai is available in 28 out of the 63 years between 1953 and 2015 (28 years for girls and 3 years for boys). The Social Security Administration only reports birth data for years in which the name was given to at least five children of the same gender.

The name Lai has been given almost exclusively to girls, with 90.2% of all recorded births being female.

For girls, Lai reached its peak popularity in 1984, achieving the 1.5% percentile (ranked #776) with 9 births per million. The name was most common in 1984, with 9 births per million (ranked 1.5% percentile). There have been no recorded female births with this name since 2015.

For boys, Lai reached its peak popularity in 1989, achieving the 0.8% percentile (ranked #751) with 3 births per million. The name was most common in 1981, with 5 births per million (ranked 0.7% percentile). There have been no recorded male births with this name since 1991.

This chart shows the total number of births per million babies in each year for the name "Lai".

1953 2015 19532015

Key Statistics

Total Births
231
Peak Births
17
Peak Year
1984
First Recorded
1953
Peak Percentile
1.5%
Current Percentile
Peak Rank
#776
Current Rank
Female statistics
Total Births
25
Peak Births
10
Peak Year
1989
First Recorded
1981
Peak Percentile
0.8%
Current Percentile
Peak Rank
#751
Current Rank
Male statistics

How to Pronounce Lai

Our model has identified 2 different pronunciations for the name Lai. Click the play button under each pronunciation to hear it spoken aloud.

Our model is 87.8% confident that Lai is pronounced as lai, which has 1 syllables. The next most likely pronunciation is lay, at 12.2% confidence, with 1 syllables.

1
87.8%
1
12.2%
lai (1 syllable)
Verified
87.8% confidence
L AY1
lay (1 syllable)
12.2% confidence
L EY1

Possible Additional Pronunciations

If none of the pronunciations above sound right to you, could you please check whether any of these related pronunciations should be applied to the name Lai? These are pronunciations that other similar names use, but which are not currently associated with Lai. If you think any of these are valid pronunciations for Lai, please vote using the thumbs up button.

About Pronunciation Data

Our confidence scores estimate the likelihood that a particular pronunciation is the most correct for a given name spelling. These scores are derived from pronunciation dictionaries, manual verification, your feedback, and a fine-tuned large language model trained to generate name pronunciations.

For any given spelling, confidence scores across all identified pronunciations sum to 100%. However, these scores don't account for the possibility of valid pronunciations that our model hasn't identified.

The raw pronunciations shown (like L AY1) use the ARPAbet phoneme system, a standardized way to represent English speech sounds. Each symbol represents a distinct sound in American English. Visit the ARPAbet Wikipedia page to learn more about these phonetic symbols.

Pronunciation audio is generated by an open source text to speech model that has been customized to adhere to pronunciations provided in ARPAbet format, but sometimes pronunciations that differ subtly will sound identical, particularly if the only difference is the level of emphasis on a syllable or a single vowel sound.

© 2025 NamePlay.org

Made with ❤️ by Aaron J Becker