Entry № 7662 · Other origin

Nyai Nyai — Meaning, Origin & Baby Name Popularity

/ NYAH-ee /
Gender
Girl
Origin
Other
Meaning
"Pramoedya's Nyai Ontosoroh - Buru Quartet"
Syllables
1
First recorded
Medieval (Javanese)

A name that means "pramoedya's nyai ontosoroh - buru quartet".

Nyai is from the Indonesian/Javanese Nyai — honorific title for a married woman or concubine (originally Dutch East Indies colonial-era native concubines to European men). Nyai Ontosoroh is the Javanese concubine + matriarch whose intelligence + resilience embodies Indonesian anti-colonial resistance. Hanung Bramantyo) starring Iqbaal Ramadhan. Indonesian feminine honorific name.

Pramoedya's Nyai Ontosoroh - Buru Quartet.

The name in its native script.

Nyai
Transliteration
Nyai
Pronunciation
/ ˈɲɑː.iː /
Root
Grammatical form

Where Nyai stands.

Nyai does not currently appear in the US Social Security Administration's top 1,000 girls' names, so we don't publish a US rank or birth count for it. That says nothing about the name's standing elsewhere in the world — only that it sits outside the ranked US data we rely on.

Nyais before her.

Real people

In fiction
Nyai Ontosoroh (Buru Quartet)
Pramoedya's Indonesian matriarch.
1980

Names connected to Nyai.

The number behind Nyai.

4

The Builder

In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Nyai reduce to 4, The Builder. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.