Murray

Murray is the 139th most common surname in the United States, shared by 179,133 people at the 2020 census. That is about one person in 1,669.

By the numbers

People: 179,133
Rank: 139th
How common: 1 in 1,669
Per 100,000: 59.9

Where the name comes from

Origin Scottish Gaelic

Scottish surname derived from the place name Moray in northeastern Scotland, from Medieval Latin Moravia, Morauia, from Scottish Gaelic Moireibh, Moireabh, Moreb, ultimately from Proto-Celtic *mori (“sea”) + *trebā (“settlement”).

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 72.3%
Black, not Hispanic 18.6%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 4.1%
Hispanic or Latino 3.7%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.7%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.6%

Notable people called Murray

Andy Murray (born 1987)British tennis player
Bill Murray (born 1950)American actor and comedian
Joseph Murray (1919–2012)US surgeon
Chad Michael Murray (born 1981)American actor
Hannah Murray (born 1989)English actress
Dave Murray (born 1956)English guitarist
Patty Murray (born 1950)United States Senator from Washington since 2013
Margaret Murray (1863–1963)Anglo-Indian Egyptologist

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

Surnames like Murray

Also a first name

Murray has been given to 22,299 American babies as a first name since 1880, peaking in 1922. 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.