In ancient times it originated as a nisba indicating affiliation with the Tayy tribe.
[citation needed] Tái is the Pinyin romanisation of the Chinese surname written using the character 邰.
According to traditional stories recorded in the Shuowen Jiezi, it originated as a toponymic surname referring to the city by the same name.
As a Japanese surname, Tai could be written with the single characters 太, 台, 泰, or 載, as well as numerous two-character combinations from one character read ta (e.g. 田, 多) and another read i (e.g. on-yomi of 衣 or kun-yomi of 居 or 井).
In a study by the National Institute of the Korean Language based on 2007 application data for South Korean passports, it was found that 28.5% of people with that surname spelled it in Latin letters as Tai in their passports, vs. 57.1% as Tae.