Friday
A surname most likely taken from the day of the week, probably for someone born on Friday or linked to some Friday event.
The #5,029 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 44,233 Americans shares it.
Etymology
This surname is generally explained as coming from the day name Friday, used as a nickname or identifying byname. Older writers suggested it may have referred to someone born on a Friday or to some notable event associated with that day. The name is not usually treated as a corruption of another surname, and early records show forms such as Friday and Pridey.
History
19th-century surname scholars connected Friday with the wider group of English surnames formed from weekdays, alongside Monday, Munday, Thursday, and Saturday. Bardsley thought the exact origin was impossible to know with certainty, but he and Lower both favored a day-name explanation. The surname appears in medieval records and later kept its modern spelling, especially in England.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
The surname Friday belongs to the same naming family as Robinson Crusoe’s famous servant Friday, a literary name that helped make the word instantly recognizable.
From the historical record
“preacher — one ^vho proclaims. FRIDAY. From the day of the week ; from some event which occurred to the original bearer on that day. So Munday, Christnms, Pentecost. This name is found in the H.R. in its modern orthography. FRIEND. FREND. Probably charac- teristic of the original bearer. Le Frend. H.R. FRIENDSHIP.…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom