Grey

At the 2020 census, 13,822 Americans bore the surname Grey — 2,546th out of 156,621 surnames on file. That is about one person in 21,600.

By the numbers

People: 13,822
Rank: 2,546th
How common: 1 in 21,600
Per 100,000: 4.6

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 Grey described their own race and Hispanic origin at the 2020 census:

White, not Hispanic 62.1%
Black, not Hispanic 22.7%
Hispanic or Latino 6.0%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 4.7%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 2.6%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 2.0%

Notable people called Grey

Lady Jane Grey (1537–1554)Queen of England and Ireland in July 1553
Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey (1764–1845)Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1830 to 1834
Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon (1862–1933)British Liberal statesman
Joel Grey (born 1932)American actor, singer, dancer, director, and photographer
Skylar Grey (born 1986)American singer
Zane Grey (1872–1939)American novelist
Jennifer Grey (born 1960)American actress
Lita Grey (1908–1995)American actress

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

Surnames like Grey

Also a first name

Grey has been given to 7,108 American babies as a first name since 1913, peaking in 2021. 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.