| Frequency Comparisons | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total | Rank | Frequency % | Per million people | |
| United States | ||||
| United States (Current snapshot) | 14,222 | 2334 | 0.005 | 53 |
| United States (1880 census) | 5,184 | 1168 | 0.01 | 104 |
| Change since 1880 | +9038 | -1166 | -0.005 | -51 |
| Other Countries | ||||
| Australia | 1,132 | 1454 | 0.007 | 69 |
| United Kingdom | 3,534 | 1773 | 0.008 | 77 |
'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.
Region of origin: British Isles
Country of origin: England
Language of origin: English
Ethnic origin: English
Religious origin: Christian
Data for religion and/or language relates to the culture in which the WAY 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 WAY surname originated. It does not necessarily have any correlation with the ethnicity of the majority of current American citizens with that name.
| Classification | Total | Percent |
|---|---|---|
| White (Hispanic) | 243 | 1.71 |
| Asian/Pacific | 210 | 1.48 |
| Mixed Race | 188 | 1.32 |
| Native American/Alaskan | 100 | 0.7 |
| White (Caucasian) | 11,688 | 82.18 |
| Black/African American | 1,793 | 12.61 |
Ethnic distribution data shows the number and percentage of people with the WAY surname who reported their ethnic background as being in these broad categories in the most recent national census.
(origin: Local) A road or passage of any kind; a name given to one who resided there. "Will o' the Way."
Arthur, William (1857) An Etymological Dictionary of Family and Christian Names. New York: Sheldon, Blakeman. Public Domain.
GAR WAY. GARRAWAY. A parish in CO. Hereford.
Lower, Mark A (1860) Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom. London: J.R. Smith. Public Domain.
The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as WAY.
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.