The history of your name

The DAY surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
Total Rank Frequency % Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot) 101,676 271 0.038 377
United States (1880 census) 31,564 161 0.063 631
Change since 1880 +70112 -110 -0.025 -254
Other Countries
Australia 8,606 133 0.053 526
United Kingdom 36,568 126 0.08 796
Top States for DAY by Total
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
California 7,574 408 0.022 224
Texas 7,132 329 0.034 342
Florida 5,640 294 0.035 353
Ohio 5,583 180 0.049 492
Indiana 3,965 119 0.065 652
Top States for DAY by Frequency
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
Maine 1,671 81 0.131 1,311
Utah 1,624 106 0.073 727
Kentucky 2,907 159 0.072 719
Idaho 892 129 0.069 689
Indiana 3,965 119 0.065 652

Notes

'A figure of zero indicates that we don't have data for this name (usually because it's quite uncommon and our stats don't go down that far). It doesn't mean that there's no-one with that name at all!

For less common surnames, the figures get progressively less reliable the fewer holders of that name there are. This data is aggregated from several public lists, and some stats are interpolated from known values. The margin of error is well over 100% at the rarest end of the table!

For less common surnames, the frequency and "per million" values may be 0 even though there are people with that name. That's because they represent less than one in a million of the population, which ends up as 0 after rounding.

It's possible for a surname to gain in rank and/or total while being less common per million people (or vice versa) as there are now more surnames in the USA as a result of immigration. In mathematical terms, the tail has got longer, with a far larger number of less common surnames.

Figures for top states show firstly the states where most people called DAY live. This obviously tends to be biased towards the most populous states. The second set of figures show where people called DAY represent the biggest proportion of the population. So, in this case, there are more people called DAY in California than any other state, but you are more likely to find a DAY by picking someone at random in Maine than anywhere else.

Classification and Origin of DAY

Region of origin: British Isles

Country of origin: England

Language of origin: English

Ethnic origin: English

Religious origin: Christian

Name derivation: Occupational Name

Data for religion and/or language relates to the culture in which the DAY surname originated. It does not necessarily have any correlation with the language spoken, or religion practised, by the majority of current American citizens with that name.

Data for ethnic origin relates to the region and country in which the DAY surname originated. It does not necessarily have any correlation with the ethnicity of the majority of current American citizens with that name.

Ethnic distribution of DAY in the USA

Classification Total Percent
Native American/Alaskan 986 0.97
Asian/Pacific 712 0.7
White (Caucasian) 86,608 85.18
Black/African American 10,290 10.12
Mixed Race 1,484 1.46
White (Hispanic) 1,596 1.57

Ethnic distribution data shows the number and percentage of people with the DAY surname who reported their ethnic background as being in these broad categories in the most recent national census.

Meaning of DAY in historical publications

The Celtic and Gaelic word deag or dagh signifies good, excellent, the same as Da, in Welsh. Camden supposes the name to be a contraction of David. Dai, Du, in the Welsh, signifies dark, in allusion to the complexion or color of the hair. Dhu, in Gaelic, the same, dark color, black. Deah, Anglo-Saxon, dark, obscure.

Arthur, William (1857) An Etymological Dictionary of Family and Christian Names. New York: Sheldon, Blakeman. Public Domain.


DAY. 1. See David. 2. A tradition states that a follower of the Conqueror settled at Eye in Suffolk, and assumed therefrom the name of D'Eye or Deye.

Lower, Mark A (1860) Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom. London: J.R. Smith. Public Domain.


Similar names to DAY

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as DAY.

This does not necessarily imply a direct relationship between the names, but may indicate names that could be mistaken for this one when written down or misheard.

Matches are generated automatically by a combination of Soundex, Metaphone and Levenshtein matching.

Potential typos for DAY

The following words are slight variants of DAY that are likely to be possible typos or misspellings in written material.