Percy

At the 2020 census, 4,062 Americans bore the surname Percy — 7,828th out of 156,621 surnames on file. That is about one person in 73,600.

By the numbers

People: 4,062
Rank: 7,828th
How common: 1 in 73,600
Per 100,000: 1.4

Where the name comes from

Origin Old French

senses (surname) and (place names) are derived from Norman Percy (“a baronial surname”), from Percy-en-Auge (“a place in Pays d’Auge, Normandy, France”), from Old French Perci, from Latin Persiacum, from Latin Persius (“a Gallo-Roman nomen gentile”), from ett 𐌐𐌄𐌓𐌔𐌖; further etymology uncertain, possibly from 𐌘𐌄𐌓𐌔𐌖 (“mask”).

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 65.5%
Black, not Hispanic 20.7%
Hispanic or Latino 6.6%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 4.3%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 1.8%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 1.2%

Notable people called Percy

Walker Percy (1916–1990)American philosophical novelist
Henry Percy (1364–1403)English noble
Thomas Percy (1729–1811)Irish Anglican bishop
Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland (1341–1408)English noble
Iain Percy (born 1976)British sailor
Karen Percy (born 1966)Canadian alpine skier
Henry Percy, 6th Earl of Northumberland (1502–1537)English noble
Henry Percy, 3rd Earl of Northumberland (1421–1461)English noble

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

Surnames like Percy

Also a first name

Percy has been given to 32,840 American babies as a first name since 1880, 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.