Foy

At the 2020 census, 11,976 Americans bore the surname Foy — 2,939th out of 156,621 surnames on file. That is about one person in 25,000.

By the numbers

People: 11,976
Rank: 2,939th
How common: 1 in 25,000
Per 100,000: 4.0

Where the name comes from

From Middle French foy (“faith”) and placenames such as Sainte-Foy, variously from sainte foy (“holy faith”) and from the French name of St. Faith.

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 68.7%
Black, not Hispanic 22.1%
Hispanic or Latino 4.1%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 3.9%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.8%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.5%

Notable people called Foy

Claire Foy (born 1984)British actress
Mackenzie Foy (born 2000)American actress
Bryan Foy (1896–1977)American film producer and director
Maximilien Sebastien Foy (1775–1825)French military leader, statesman and writer

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

Also a first name

Foy has been given to 2,533 American babies as a first name since 1889, peaking in 1921. 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.