Given name & surname · also Marathi
Desai
“leader of a village”
Desai is a surname from Marathi (ultimately Gujarati).
Meaning & origin
What it means
Desai goes back to Marathi देसाई, meaning “leader of a village.”
Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Where it comes from
Desai comes from Marathi, and ultimately from Gujarati.
Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
How it developed
From Marathi देसाई (“leader of a village”), from Gujarati દેસાઈ.
Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
The story
Published U.S. birth records include this spelling as early as 2009. This is the earliest published observation available here, rather than a date for the name’s origin.
From dated birth records
Desai through the years
- Babies since 1880
- 83
- 83 boys · 0 girls
- Most popular year
- 2025
- 12 babies
- 2025
- 12
- #6,905 for boys
- 2021–25 vs 2016–20
- +56%
- Rising fast
By the numbers
In 2025, this name appeared in 12 U.S. birth records for boys, ranking No. 6,905 among boys’ names. The recent annual counts are too incomplete to establish a ten-year comparison. Published U.S. population figures for this spelling include 100 as a first name in 2020; 22,954 as a surname in 2020.
From Social Security birth records and U.S. Census name counts for this exact spelling. Other spellings are counted separately.
Desai’s family of names
In English usage, Desai as a surname was borrowed from the Marathi form देसाई. In English usage, Desai as a surname was borrowed from the Gujarati form દેસાઈ.
The ring: across languages.
Across languages 2
Equivalents and cognates in other languages, plus older forms it grew from.
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