The history of your name

The GRAY surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
Total Rank Frequency % Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot) 236,713 79 0.088 878
United States (1880 census) 59,387 61 0.119 1,188
Change since 1880 +177326 -18 -0.031 -310
Other Countries
Australia 16,622 61 0.102 1,017
United Kingdom 62,144 67 0.135 1,353
Top States for GRAY by Total
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
Texas 17,979 106 0.086 862
California 16,657 144 0.049 492
Florida 13,111 92 0.082 820
Ohio 11,071 63 0.098 975
Tennessee 8,805 60 0.155 1,548
Top States for GRAY by Frequency
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
Maine 2,976 22 0.233 2,334
Mississippi 5,358 49 0.188 1,884
Alabama 7,309 59 0.164 1,644
Tennessee 8,805 60 0.155 1,548
Arkansas 4,091 53 0.153 1,530

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

Classification and Origin of GRAY

Region of origin: British Isles

Country of origin: England

Language of origin: English

Ethnic origin: English

Religious origin: Christian

Name derivation: Nickname

Data for religion and/or language relates to the culture in which the GRAY 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 GRAY 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 GRAY in the USA

Classification Total Percent
White (Caucasian) 168,374 71.13
Black/African American 57,663 24.36
Mixed Race 3,929 1.66
White (Hispanic) 3,716 1.57
Asian/Pacific 1,042 0.44
Native American/Alaskan 1,988 0.84

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

Meaning of GRAY in historical publications

(origin: Local) A town in Burgundy, France, on the banks of the Saone. Rollo, Chamberlain to Robert, Duke of Normandy, received from him the castle and honor of Croy, in Picardy, whence his family assumed the name of De Croy, afterward changed into De Gray.

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


GRAY. See Grey.

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 GRAY

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as GRAY.

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 GRAY

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