Renay
Meaning of Renay
Renay is a unisex appellation of French etymology, derived as an orthographic variant of the feminine Renée—itself from Latin renatus “reborn”—and anglicized within Anglo-American naming conventions to the phonetic form /ɹəˈneɪ/. The substitution of the diacritic with the “ay” digraph aligns with English orthography, facilitating both ease of pronunciation and gender-neutral application. A longitudinal analysis of United States Social Security Administration registrations from 1936 through 2015 indicates a zenith of approximately 76 annual occurrences in 1960 (rank ca. 701), followed by a gradual diminution to single-digit frequencies and a ranking within the 900s by 2015. This distribution evidences Renay’s sustained yet modest niche viability, reflecting broader onomastic movements toward distinctive unisex variants and the enduring resonance of its underlying semantic connotation of renewal.
Pronunciation
English
- Pronunced as reh-NAY (/ɹəˈneɪ/)
U.S. Popularity Chart
