Fay

14,132 people in the United States were counted with the surname Fay in the 2020 census, making it the 2,493rd most common in the country. That is about one person in 21,200.

By the numbers

People: 14,132
Rank: 2,493rd
How common: 1 in 21,200
Per 100,000: 4.7

Where the name comes from

Origin a nickname

Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Who bears the name

How people with the surname Fay described their own race and Hispanic origin at the 2020 census:

White, not Hispanic 89.7%
Hispanic or Latino 4.1%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 3.2%
Black, not Hispanic 1.5%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 1.2%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.3%

Notable people called Fay

Charles François de Cisternay du Fay (1698–1739)French chemist
Meagen Fay (born 1957)American actress
Frank Fay (1891–1961)American actor and comedian
András Fáy (1786–1864)Hungarian author, lawyer, politician and businessman
Bill Fay (1943–2025)British singer
Marie Victor de Fay, marquis de Latour-Maubourg (1768–1850)French general

People named Fay with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).

Also a first name

Fay has been given to 36,177 American babies as a first name since 1880, peaking in 1926. See it as a given name.

Try it on yourself

Source: US Census Bureau, Frequently Occurring Surnames, 2020. The Census describes the file as the surnames borne by 100 or more people; rarer names are not published. The line is not quite exact, and 617 published names come in under it, the smallest at 92 people. Race and Hispanic origin are self-reported. Rates are worked out against the 298.9 million people the file's own figures are calculated on, which is fewer than the census counted in all: the difference is everyone whose surname was too rare to publish.