Lay

18,585 people in the United States were counted with the surname Lay in the 2020 census, making it the 1,896th most common in the country. That is about one person in 16,100.

By the numbers

People: 18,585
Rank: 1,896th
How common: 1 in 16,100
Per 100,000: 6.2

Where the name comes from

As an English surname, spelling variant of Lee.

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 64.3%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 19.0%
Black, not Hispanic 7.8%
Hispanic or Latino 4.3%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 3.7%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.9%

Notable people called Lay

Lay (born 1991)Chinese rapper and singer
Kenneth Lay (1942–2006)former chairman and CEO of Enron Corporation
Kirsti Lay (born 1988)Canadian cyclist and speed skater
Jeffrey Lay (born 1969)Canadian rower
Benjamin Lay (1682–1759)American Quaker activist
David Le Lay (born 1979)road bicycle racer
Marion Lay (born 1948)Canadian swimmer, Olympic bronze medallist
Omah Lay (born 1997)Nigerian singer

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

Surnames like Lay

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.