Azai
Masculine
Azai is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 1,574 boys against 26 girls since 1880.
Azai is four letters and two beats, built almost entirely from sounds American ears already carry — the Aza- of Azariah, the -ai of Kai and Zai. It is a recent arrival in US birth records and has moved upward without a pause since, while staying rare enough that most people meet it for the first time in a child.
How old is the name Azai?
Azai first appears in US birth records in 2008 — 17 years ago. The typical Azai is a kid of about 3 — this name's wave is very recent. About 1,600 people named Azai are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Azai most popular?
Azai peaked in 2025, reaching #809 nationally. Today it ranks #809, exactly where it peaked. See the whole 2025 chart.
Azai appears on this list:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
Our story of Azai
The documented trail for Azai is short — it surfaces in American records only recently, with no settled source language standing behind it. What it does have is company. The Aza- opening has been in English use for centuries through Hebrew names like Azariah; the -ai ending arrived much more recently, riding in with Kai and Zai. Written exactly the same way, Azai is also a Japanese surname, romanized Azai or Asai and borne by a sixteenth-century samurai family of Ōmi province — a meeting of spellings rather than a line of descent. So the name stands at a crossroads of familiar sounds, and its history is still being made by the children who carry it.
Meaningnot established
Not established
No source language or translation has been established for Azai as a given name. What is documented is where it appears: American birth records of the last couple of decades, with its strongest showing in Florida, Texas and New York, and a sound that overlaps with several older name families rather than descending clearly from any one of them.
Pronouncing Azai
uh-ZY
uh-ZY (second syllable rhyming with "eye") is the most common American reading, but ah-ZAY-ee and AY-zay are all heard, and no one version has settled. Whichever a family chooses, expect to state it rather than assume it.
Nicknames for Azai
High
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 2008
- Most boys named
- 2025307 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #809reached in 2025
- Change vs 2024
- +21.8%307 in 2025, from 252
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Azai in other languages
Strongest US states over the last decade: Florida, Texas, New York.
Azais among us
people named Azai are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 5,564 born in 2025 was named Azai
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Azai
- #809
- Azai on the 2025 chart
- #582
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Azai went to 307 boys in 2025, but Asai is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 378, which makes it the 582nd most-given boys’ name of the year — 227 places above the chart.
- Azai307
- Asai71
About 1 boy in 4,519 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 5,564 for Azai itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Nikhil test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Azai's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Nikhil climbed just as high around 1999, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Nikhil's path sketches the road Azai is walking now.
Azai is climbing fast right now. Steep climbs tend to come with steep descents — the quicker a name arrives, the more firmly it belongs to its moment.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Azai is headed
Azai looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 41% more babies a year by 2030 if the current curve holds. Its history is short or jumpy, though, so read this as a sketch rather than a promise.
Low confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Azai beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Azai in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Four letters, easy to write out and easy to fit on any form.
- Every sound in it already exists in familiar American names, so people can approximate it after hearing it once.
- Short forms come ready-made: Az, Zai and Zay all work without effort.
- Rare enough that a child is unlikely to share it with anyone in their school.
- The pronunciation is genuinely unsettled — uh-ZY, ah-ZAY-ee and AY-zay all circulate. You will be correcting people, kindly and often, for life.
- No established meaning or origin. If a documented story behind a name matters to you, this one cannot offer it; if it does not, the blank space is simply blank.
- It sits close to Azariah, Azaiah, Asa and Zai, so mishearings and mix-ups with those names are likely.
- It is a young name on the way up, with almost no adult bearers to point to — for now, it will read as a child's name because that is who carries it.
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What they receive
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Azai
Masculine · #809 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Azais are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,600 people named Azai are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Azai?
- Azai is the most-used spelling in US records — 307 of the 378 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Asai.
- How popular is the name Azai in 2025?
- Azai ranks #809 among US boy names in 2025, with 307 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Azai?
- About 1 in every 5,564 US boys born in 2025 was named Azai — 307 in all.
- Will my child share the name Azai with classmates?
- Azai will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Azai
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Ty#810 · Rohan#810 · Jones#810 · Brock#810 · Douglas#807 · Lennon#807 · Mccoy#805 · Dilan#805
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Azai? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Azai and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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