Renay
Feminine · “reborn”
Renay is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 1,936 girls against 24 boys since 1880.
Renay is what the French ending looks like when an English speaker spells it from scratch. The original closes with an accented e that English keyboards and English readers both struggle with; writing -ay instead produces the same sound using letters English is confident about, and loses the accent problem entirely.
How old is the name Renay?
Renay first appears in US birth records in 1936 — 89 years ago. The typical Renay alive today was born around 1966, making them about 59 years old. About 1,700 people named Renay are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Renay most popular?
Renay peaked in 1960, reaching #1253 nationally. See the whole 1960 chart.
Where it comes from
From Renatus to Renay
The story of Renay
The philosopher who carried the French form did something to his own name that echoes through every mathematics classroom. Writing in Latin, as scholars did, he signed himself Renatus Cartesius — the surname Latinized from Des Cartes — and it is that Latin form, not the French one, that produced the adjective. Cartesian coordinates are named after a version of his name that only existed on title pages. Nobody in his life called him Cartesius; it was the professional costume a seventeenth-century writer put on to be read across Europe, and it is the part that survived.
Meaning
reborn
From a Latin participle meaning born again, and the sense was originally a statement about baptism rather than a description of the child. The respelling touches nothing but the last two letters.
How the name formed
- Renatus
- Renée
- Renay
Related forms: Renée
Pronouncing Renay
ruh-NAY
Two syllables with the weight at the back. The spelling can only be read one way, which the accented original cannot in an English context.
Nicknames for Renay
Moderate
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
- 1936
- Most girls named
- 196076 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1253reached in 1960
- Change vs 2013
- −25.0%6 in 2015, from 8
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.
Renay in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Renée in French — same name
Renays among us
people named Renay are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Renay sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- The spelling is unambiguous where the French one depends on an accent nobody types.
- The stress at the back gives it a firm finish.
- The meaning is unusually specific and rather hopeful.
- Renee is far commoner and this spelling gets corrected constantly.
- The spelling is recorded for a few boys, but nearly every child with it is a girl.
- It is closely tied to the decades of its use.
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What they receive
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Renay
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Renays are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,700 people named Renay are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Renay in 2025?
- Renay is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Renay with classmates?
- Renay will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More R names
The most-given names starting with R, all years combined.
Ruth#173 · Rebecca#349 · Rachel#250 · Rose#114 · Ruby#64 · Robin#704 · Rita#1285 · Rhonda#6116
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Renay? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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