Hayes

Hayes is the 133rd most common surname in the United States, shared by 186,445 people at the 2020 census. That is about one person in 1,603.

By the numbers

People: 186,445
Rank: 133rd
How common: 1 in 1,603
Per 100,000: 62.4

Where the name comes from

As an English locational surname, from Old English hæs (“brushwood”) (see hris) and Middle English hay (“enclosure”), heye.

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 66.9%
Black, not Hispanic 24.0%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 4.5%
Hispanic or Latino 3.2%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.7%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.6%

Notable people called Hayes

Rutherford B. Hayes (1822–1893)president of the United States from 1877 to 1881
Helen Hayes (1900–1993)American actress
Isaac Hayes (1942–2008)American musician and actor
Sean Hayes (born 1970)American actor
Lucy Webb Hayes (1831–1889)First Lady of the United States from 1877 to 1881
Darren Hayes (born 1972)Australian pop singer
Johnny Hayes (1886–1965)American athlete
Elvin Hayes (born 1945)American basketball player

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

Surnames like Hayes

Also a first name

Hayes has been given to 21,886 American babies as a first name since 1880, peaking in 2024. 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.