girls:
65 births since 2001
#5651 (1st percentile)
boys:
199 births since 2004
#4387 (4th percentile)
overall:
264 births since 2001
#7475 (3rd percentile)
The name Zai is the #7,475 most popular name of all time in the U.S. on a gender-neutral basis, with a total of 264 recorded births since 2001. This represents the 3.4% percentile of name popularity (more popular than 3.4% of all names). For boys, it ranks #4,387 (4.3% percentile) for all time with 199 births since 2004. For girls, it ranks #5,651 (1.1% percentile) for all time with 65 births since 2001.
Zai first appeared in U.S. birth records in 2001 (2001 for girls and 2004 for boys). Birth data for Zai is available in 17 out of the 23 years between 2001 and 2023 (16 years for boys and 11 years for girls). 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 Zai has been given predominantly to boys, with 75.4% of all recorded births being male. In 2023, 78.8% of babies named Zai were boys. Interestingly, until around 2004, the name was more popular for girls (100.0% girls from 2001 to 2003), but since then it has been more commonly used for boys (76.8% boys from 2004 to 2023).
For boys, Zai reached its peak popularity in 2023, achieving the 2.3% percentile (ranked #890) with 14 births per million. The name was most common in 2023, with 14 births per million (ranked 2.3% percentile). Since reaching a low point around 2018, the popularity of this name for boys has been increasing. Currently, Zai is at or near its peak popularity for boys, ranked #890 (2.3% percentile) with 14 births per million.
For girls, Zai reached its peak popularity in 2020, achieving the 0.3% percentile (ranked #937) with 5 births per million. The name was most common in 2020, with 5 births per million (ranked 0.3% percentile). Over the past 5 years, the popularity of this name for girls has been increasing. Currently, Zai ranks #945 for girls (0.2% percentile) with 4 births per million, which is 88.4% of its peak share of births.
This chart shows the total number of births per million babies in each year for the name "Zai".
These names exclude other spelling variations of this name. View all variations of Zai.
These similar-looking names have spellings that are closest to the spelling of "Zai", in the sense that there are the fewest number of letter differences between the two spellings. These names exclude other spelling variations of this name. View all variations of Zai.
Our model has identified 2 different pronunciations for the name Zai. Click the play button under each pronunciation to hear it spoken aloud.
Our model is 64.9% confident that Zai is pronounced as zai, which has 1 syllables. The next most likely pronunciation is zay, at 35.1% confidence, with 1 syllables.
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 Zai? These are pronunciations that other similar names use, but which are not currently associated with Zai. If you think any of these are valid pronunciations for Zai, please vote using the thumbs up button.
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 Z 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.
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