Khai is a short name with several sources: in Vietnamese it is usually explained as "victory" or "triumph", in Arabic it recalls Khair, "goodness", and many American parents treat it as a spelling of Kai, the Hawaiian word for "sea". Singer Zayn Malik and model Gigi Hadid named their daughter Khai in 2020, which raised the name's profile. For boys in the United States Khai entered the top 1000 in 2021, peaked at number 724 in 2023 and ranks 1179 in 2025.