Davies
surname · English · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Davies is a surname, most frequently recorded in the United Kingdom, where it is the 3rd most common surname. It appears chiefly in English and Welsh, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: from Davy, i.e. David; first attested John Dauisse 1327 SRC.
- GBUnited Kingdom1 in 208◐
- NZNew Zealand1 in 290
- USUnited States1 in 298
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈1.1M ●
- #96 ●
- 5 ●
- Sources
- 599 ●
- 1 in 298 ◐
across 9 countries
of 21M surnames
recorded for this name
12M records
Official registry-verified
United States
Spellings & scripts●
Locally spelled Davis in US United States, GB United Kingdom, AU Australia and 15 more and Dāvis in LV Latvia.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records; ○ marks a model's transliteration. Click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin●
from Davy, i.e. David; first attested John Dauisse 1327 SRC
Sources 1
- A Dictionary of English Surnames
Where in the world●
Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GB United Kingdom | #3 | 1,120,360 | 719K rec. | — | listed | Davis | 294 |
| US United States | #7 | 1,116,357 | 10M rec. | 1 in 298 | 1.1M | Davis | 599 |
| AU Australia | #6 | 272,933 | 258K rec. | — | — | Davis | 287 |
| CA Canada | #7 | 183,225 | 183K rec. | — | 4 | Davis | 233 |
| IT Italy | #11 | 50,486 | 52K rec. | — | 17 | Davis | 94 |
| DE Germany | #147 | 36,984 | 37K rec. | — | 1 | Davis | 143 |
| RU Russia | — | 27,176 | 30K rec. | — | — | Davis | 64 |
| NZ New Zealand | #4 | 26,056 | 23K rec. | — | — | Davis | 138 |
| PH Philippines | #620 | 22,165 | 24K rec. | — | — | Davis | 80 |
| IE Ireland | #6 | 20,906 | 21K rec. | — | — | Davis | 112 |
| SG Singapore | #17 | 19,618 | 21K rec. | — | — | Davis | 66 |
| EG Egypt | #110 | 18,018 | 18K rec. | — | — | Davis | 29 |
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.
Languages●
- English853K68%
- Welsh216K17%
- Spanish33K3%
- 16K1%
- Telugu14K1%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| English | 853,039 | 68% |
| Welsh | 215,898 | 17% |
| Spanish | 32,796 | 3% |
| 16,167 | 1% | |
| Telugu | 14,229 | 1% |
Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.
Other recorded senses●
Davies is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, A Welsh and English surname originating as a patronymic derived from the given name Davy/Davey/Davie or David.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Irish, Bibl
as a nameThe Surnames of Ireland
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Over time●
Show as table
| Year | records |
|---|---|
| 1891 | 6 |
| 1901 | 5 |
| 1911 | 15 |
| 1921 | 26 |
| 1931 | 17 |
| 1941 | 13 |
| 1951 | 30 |
| 1961 | 43 |
| 1971 | 34 |
| 1981 | 58 |
| 1991 | 76 |
FR INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) — 11 years between 1891–1991. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.
Notable people with this name●
- Ivor Novellob. 1893GBnot in their usual nameWelsh composer and actor (1893–1951)
- Marion Daviesb. 1897USAmerican actress (1897–1961)
- Princess Lilian, Duchess of Hallandb. 1915GBnot in their usual nameWelsh model who became a member of the Swedish royal family (1915-2013)
- Norman Daviesb. 1939GBBritish historian
- Oliver Ford Daviesb. 1939GBBritish actor
- Paul Daviesb. 1946GBBritish physicist (1946-)
- Jeremy Daviesb. 1969USAmerican actor
- Ben Daviesb. 1993GBWelsh association football player (born 1993)
- Alphonso Daviesb. 2000CACanadian soccer player
- Morgan Daviesb. 2001AUAustralian actor
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
Evidence●
Attested in 59 sources across 36 countries.
Reference works 6
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (Tom II: C-D)
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 156 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Davies?
- We estimate roughly 1.1 million people bear Davies (counting its spellings and scripts) across 9 countries in our records.
- In which country does Davies have the most bearers?
- Davies is most frequently recorded in the United Kingdom, where it is most often spelled davis.
- How common is Davies compared with other names?
- In the United Kingdom, Davies is the 3rd most common surname of 1,169,970 surnames recorded there.
- What does the name Davies mean?
- Recorded meaning: from Davy, i.e. David; first attested John Dauisse 1327 SRC
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/daviesThe same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use. Bulk access and licensing.
About this data
Data snapshot . Figures are rebuilt periodically and will change.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Davies” — the 3rd most common surname in United Kingdom. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.