Jay
A surname that most often began as a nickname for someone thought to resemble a jay—talkative, flashy, or brightly dressed—or as a place-name from Herefordshire.
The #3,604 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 31,338 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The name is usually traced to Middle English jay, the bird, used as a nickname for a person imagined to be a chatterer or someone dressed in a showy way. Some older surname writers also connected it with a local name from Jay in Herefordshire, so not every family will share the same origin. The French surname forms Gai/Gay and related spellings were also compared with Jay in older works, suggesting possible overlap or later spelling simplification.
History
Older English surname collections record Jay early and treat it as both a nickname and a local surname. Because the word was common and short, the name may have arisen independently in more than one place and in more than one spelling. The surname remains established in England and later appears in the United States and other English-speaking countries.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
In medieval culture, the jay was a fitting symbol for a noisy or gaudy person, so bird-nicknames became a rich source of surnames.
From the historical record
“omission of a couple of letters. JAY. JAYE. A township united witli Heath, in the parish of Leiutwardiue, co. Hereford. JAY'NE. See Jane. JExVCOCK, Probably a diminutive of James, Jcakins seems to be of the same origin, and both proceed from " Jeams," the rustic pronunciation of the name. JEAFFRESON. See Jeffery.”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom