Roy

surname · Hindi · Latin script

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Roy is a surname, most frequently recorded in Bangladesh, where it is the 67th most common surname. It appears chiefly in Hindi and , written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: from a French nickname for regal behavior or for a red-haired person; also a form of Ray or a Hindu name meaning ‘king’.

rarermore common
  • BDBangladesh1 in 527◐
  • CACanada1 in 2.1K
  • AEUnited Arab Emirates1 in 3.1K

carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.

≈98K ●

across 9 countries

#989 ●

of 21M surnames

2 ●

recorded for this name

Sources
516 ●

4.0M records

Official registry-verified

1 in 6.3K ◐

United States

Spellings & scripts●

RoyLatin · English●1.1M records
רועיHebrew · Hebrew●88K records

2 other spellings are counted as the same name:

Locally spelled רועי in IL Israel, Roi in FR France and Roey in ES Spain.

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 a French nickname for regal behavior or for a red-haired person; also a form of Ray or a Hindu name meaning ‘king’

Sources 1

  • Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]

Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world●

Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.

Where Roy is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
BD Bangladesh#67494,77216 rec.——Roy6
US United States#56553,1593M rec.1 in 6.3K176KRoy516
GB United Kingdom#42148,120201K rec.——Roy229
IN India—37,50989K rec.1 in 35K38KRoy218
CA Canada#11536,02997K rec.—10Roy216
AU Australia#46717,10479K rec.—62Roy226
PH Philippines—7,704106K rec.——Roy140
DE Germany—6,76628K rec.——Roy179
FR France—3,574△139 rec.1 in 19K3.6KRoi10
MY Malaysia—2,1278.7K rec.——Roy83
IT Italy—2,02720K rec.—10Roy75
ES Spain—1,9518.8K rec.1 in 26K3.5KRoey98

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.

Languages●

  • Hindi2.4M37%
  • 1.5M23%
  • English1.1M17%
  • Bangla1M16%
  • French233K4%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
Hindi2,430,48937%
1,494,73023%
English1,116,19017%
Bangla1,037,07916%
French232,7634%

Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.

Other names spelled this way◐

Roy is also recorded as 7 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Hindi surname3.7M records spelled Roy117 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, Bangladesh, United States, United Kingdom

    Languages: Hindi, Bangla, Urdu

    Also written Ray, রায়, রায, Raya, Rāẏa

  • a separate surname1.6M records spelled Roy3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, United States, United Kingdom, Canada

    Also written Rōy

  • Spanish surname400K records spelled Roy22 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Spain, Argentina, Philippines

    Also written Röy, Röÿ, Rôÿ, Řõy, Rôy

  • French surname282K records spelled Roy2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, Canada, United States, Belgium

  • Indonesian surname62K records spelled Roy4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, United States

    Languages: Indonesian, Malay

    Also written 'Roy

  • Danish surname50K records spelled Roy7 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Denmark, India, Norway

    Languages: Danish, Norwegian, Swedish

    Also written Roÿ

  • Sinhala surname21K records spelled Roy3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, United States, Canada, United Kingdom

    Also written Royi, රෝයි

95 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses●

Roy is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In English, from OFr roi ‘king’, also used as a personal name; first attested Adam le Roy 1268 FFSf

    as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames

  • In Irish, Gaelic ruadh, ‘red’; not connected with French roi ‘king’.

    as a nameIrish first names

  • Gaelic ruadh, ‘red’, unconnected with French roi, ‘king’. A Ne Ruth name which originated in Scotland and spread from there to England and Ireland. Ruth [Rut] (f) A Biblical name of unknown derivation. It is becoming increasingly popular in Ireland.

    as a nameIrish first names

  • In English, A male given name from Scottish Gaelic.

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In French, soit de (Le) Roy, le nom de plusieurs localités en France, ou de roi, surnom ironique.

    as a nameDictionnaire des noms de famille du Canada français. Anthroponymie et généalogie. 2e édition

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●

02K4K6K8K1900195020007.6K · 1947

Show as table
Roy in SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present), United States, 1880–2025
Yearrecords
1880440
1881440
1882521
1883556
1884680
1885691
1886767
1887726
1888856
1889888
1890941
1891838
18921,048
1893919
18941,018
18951,028
18961,027
1897999
18981,049
1899912
19001,215
1901917
19021,002
1903975
19041,123
19051,016
19061,024
19071,128
19081,097
19091,135
19101,267
19111,394
19122,591
19133,090
19143,852
19155,052
19165,327
19175,586
19186,211
19195,970
19206,355
19216,545
19226,458
19236,316
19246,557
19256,376
19266,224
19276,387
19286,229
19295,812
19305,917
19315,489
19325,238
19334,906
19345,104
19354,939
19364,815
19374,890
19385,041
19395,156
19405,565
19415,950
19426,311
19436,932
19446,533
19456,183
19466,925
19477,560
19487,067
19496,622
19506,454
19516,466
19526,524
19536,655
19546,513
19556,331
19566,133
19576,063
19585,525
19595,183
19605,255
19614,966
19624,476
19634,440
19644,149
19653,785
19663,522
19673,276
19683,177
19693,001
19703,041
19712,960
19722,476
19732,236
19742,187
19752,121
19761,871
19771,913
19781,795
19791,753
19801,779
19811,726
19821,617
19831,456
19841,383
19851,379
19861,283
19871,263
19881,164
19891,258
19901,227
19911,129
1992992
1993897
1994863
1995732
1996719
1997749
1998655
1999638
2000638
2001573
2002566
2003570
2004543
2005531
2006599
2007536
2008552
2009473
2010457
2011443
2012466
2013508
2014525
2015534
2016539
2017531
2018520
2019494
2020487
2021521
2022509
2023526
2024553
2025570

US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 146 years between 1880–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

18001850190019502000Edward James Roye, b. 1815Manabendra Nath Roy, b. 1887Gabrielle Roy, b. 1909Nirupa Roy, b. 1930Deep Roy, b. 1952Arundhati Roy, b. 1961Ronit Roy, b. 1965Maxim Roy, b. 1972Brandon Roy, b. 1984Drew Roy, b. 1986

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 118 sources across 63 countries.

Official registers attesting Roy
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020176K#314
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020202054K#606
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010201053K#640
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000200050K#621
IN IndiaInstate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls—38K#388
NL NetherlandsMeertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017)—20K#170
NO NorwaySSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population)—19K#239
NO NorwaySSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891)20256.9K—
CR Costa RicaTSE — electoral roll (padrón) names—6.3K#115
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—4.6K#641
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)19913.6K—
EC EcuadorINEC — civil registry names20242.5K#424

Reference works 7

  • The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
  • Wikipedia given-name tokens
  • Wikipedia surname tokens
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
  • jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)

These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 1,548 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Roy?
We estimate roughly 98 thousand people bear Roy (counting its spellings and scripts) across 9 countries in our records.
In which country does Roy have the most bearers?
Roy is most frequently recorded in Bangladesh, where it is most often spelled roy.
How common is Roy compared with other names?
In Bangladesh, Roy is the 67th most common surname of 11,292 surnames recorded there.
What does the name Roy mean?
Recorded meaning: from a French nickname for regal behavior or for a red-haired person; also a form of Ray or a Hindu name meaning ‘king’
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/roy

The 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

● measured from records◐ inferred from the name graph○ machine-generated

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, “Roy” — the 67th most common surname in Bangladesh. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Roy parses inside a full name →