Troy
Usually a surname from the French city of Troyes, though some sources also linked it to the older name Trow.
The #4,383 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 38,074 Americans shares it.
Etymology
This surname is most often explained as a locational name, referring to Troyes in France. The town’s ancient forms go back through Latin to the Gallic tribal name of the Tricassii, so the surname ultimately points to that place rather than to the English word “troy.” Some 19th-century writers also suggested a connection with forms like Trow or Try, but the place-name explanation is the stronger and more widely accepted one.
History
Medieval records cited by surname scholars include forms such as de Troys and de Troyes, which support a French place-name origin. In England, the surname appears to have entered through Norman or post-Conquest contacts and later also overlapped with spellings influenced by Trow. The name is relatively uncommon in the modern United States.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
The same French place that likely gave the surname Troy also gave English the word troy-weight, originally a system associated with Troyes.
From the historical record
“cent. Trowes, Trows [pl.of trow : v. Trow] TROY (Fr.-Lat.-Celt.)Bel. toTroyes (France), anc. Augusta Trecorum, or Tricas(s)i, the chief city of the Gaul, tribe the Tricassii [prob. conn, with O.Ir. tri, by, through, and (as the descriptive pers. element) O.Ir. cas, curly hair (Gael, cas, to curl] Jacobus de Troys…”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)