Foley

Foley is the 667th most common surname in the United States, shared by 49,766 people at the 2020 census. That is about one person in 6,006.

By the numbers

People: 49,766
Rank: 667th
How common: 1 in 6,006
Per 100,000: 16.7

Where the name comes from

Origin Irish

Reduced Anglicized form of Irish Ó Foghladha (“descendant of Foghlaidh”), a byname from foghlaí (“plunderer, pillager, marauder, robber”).

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 89.5%
Black, not Hispanic 3.3%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 3.2%
Hispanic or Latino 3.1%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.8%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.2%

Notable people called Foley

Scott Foley (born 1972)American actor
Mick Foley (born 1965)American professional wrestler
James Foley (1973–2014)American journalist
James Foley (1953–2025)American film director and screenwriter
Dave Foley (born 1963)Canadian actor
John Patrick Foley (1935–2011)American Roman Catholic archbishop and cardinal
Tom Foley (1929–2013)American politician from Washington
Kevin Foley (born 1984)Irish footballer

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

Surnames like Foley

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.