Clay

At the 2020 census, 47,234 Americans bore the surname Clay — 710th out of 156,621 surnames on file. That is about one person in 6,328.

By the numbers

People: 47,234
Rank: 710th
How common: 1 in 6,328
Per 100,000: 15.8

Where the name comes from

Origin an occupational name

From a Middle English occupational name for a clay worker, or a habitational name, from Old English clǣġ (“clay”).

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 50.3%
Black, not Hispanic 39.6%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 5.2%
Hispanic or Latino 3.4%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.8%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.7%

Notable people called Clay

Henry Clay (1777–1852)American politician from Kentucky
Bryan Clay (born 1980)American decathlete
Andrew Dice Clay (born 1957)American comedian and actor
Lucius D. Clay (1897–1978)United States general
Cassius M. Clay (1810–1903)American planter, politician and ambassador to Russia
Clement Comer Clay (1789–1866)American politician
Otis Clay (1942–2016)American R&B and soul singer
Nicholas Clay (1946–2000)British actor

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

Surnames like Clay

Also a first name

Clay has been given to 40,525 American babies as a first name since 1880, peaking in 1960. 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.