Last name gay origin

If one opens and examines the population adjusted maps for both Gay and Guy side by side, it is quickly evident that each surname has at least several such centers of origin. However, byit had slipped to the th position, marking a % drop in rank. The second American immigrant founder was Henry Gay who came to the Virginia tidewater in the s.

What is the origin : Gay Family History Gay Name Meaning English (southwestern), French, and Catalan: nickname for a lighthearted or cheerful person, from Middle English, Old French gai, Catalan gay ‘cheerful’

Explore the Gay family history for the English Origin. However, there is no proof in any of these instances that these surnames had yet become hereditary; they may have simply been bynames acquired as identifiers by the individuals involved during their lifetimes but not passed on to their children.

A few years later he removed to the nearby town of Dedham where he was for one year a selectman and held many other minor town offices. It appears that the vast majority of American GAYs are descended, about equally, from one of three major lineages.

I will have more to say about the American GAYs presently, but I would like to include a word here, in the context of the British surname maps, about where each group may have come from. According to Fischer, the southern colonies, tom.blyth gay especially Virginia, were disproportionately settled from the southwest of England, which had quite a different subculture from that of the central and eastern portions of the home country—a subculture that was more rural, more conservative, and more hierarchical, all of which characteristics correspond to the plantation economy of the southern tidewater areas.

In the Oxford Dictionary of Surnamesthe surname Gay is said to be of at least three derivations: from an English personal name meaning light-hearted or cheerful, from a Norman French locative, or place name, and from a Catalan medieval name derived from the Latin given name Gaius—the first given name, as a matter of fact, of Julius Caesar.

One of the earliest known instances of the surname “Gay” comes from England, where it was derived from the Old French word “gai,” meaning “joyful” or “merry.” This suggests that the name could have initially been used to.

The first American founder bearing the surname was John Gay the New Englander there byand we know that the largest contingent of early Puritans hailed from East Anglia. The OED shows it being used by Chaucer with something like the modern connotations, including the homosexual stereotyping.

It is last evident that there is little or no overlap between the centers for GAY and for GUY, and in general, the very different distribution of these surnames makes it clear that most of the families who bore these different names probably were unrelated by blood.

Check out the Gay history and family crest/coat of arms. Because there is reason to believe that both the origins GAY and GUY ultimately have French roots, a look at these surnames in Canada, gay English and French mingle, ought to be interesting.

Finally, the several families of Scotch-Irish Gays who came into Pennsylvania in the period, and so on to the western Virginia frontier, most likely came over from western Scotland, by way of Ireland, although they may not have originated specifically in the Scottish west.

It has recently come to be recognized that the vast majority of early Virginia immigrants were indentured servants typically transportees via London but there are reasons, which I will discuss below, why Henry was not, probably, of this class.

Its origins can be traced back to multiple cultures and languages.

Yes, Guy is a separate surname, which is suggested by its prevalence in England over Gay, and its different geographical distribution there, but at the same time, I believe that origin Guys are actually Gays in disguise apologies for the pun.

Free Search. One would expect a surname of especially common and widespread derivation, like the occupational name Smith every substantial village had its blacksmith to have at least scores, if not hundreds, of independent origins.

The maps show quite a few Gays and Guys in the western Scottish regions around Glasgow, and this was indeed the jumping off point for Ireland, but the maps suggest that this patrilineage of Scottish GAYs most likely originated in Fife.

The last name “Gay” has a rich history and carries various meanings and associations. The first Gay to settle in America was probably the John Gay, born saywho was admitted, before 6May, to membership in the church of Watertown, in Massachusetts Bay Colony, implying that he had been recognized as a freeman of the colony the previous year.

It seems likely to me that 1. The count of individuals with this surname also decreased. There is also some radiation from Gloucestershire into the adjacent Welsh county of Monmouth, and an independent cluster of Gays in the westernmost coastal Welsh county of Pembroke.

Based on the Decennial U.S. Census data, the popularity of the surname Gay saw a slight decline from to InGay was ranked as the th most popular surname in the United States. I think the true answer straddles verbal gay breeding question.

What is the origin of the name Gay?. In the end, for genealogical purposes, we care not about surnames or their spellings, but about particular patrilineagesof which surnames in their variant spellings are merely the identifiers. Gay population-adjusted maps are the most useful for indicating the likely places of origin for a surname, because they minimize the distortions caused by the last clustering of people of all surnames in urban areas during modern times, and allow the typical British pattern of gradual radiation out from a center of origin, to show through.

It is therefore likely that both surnames developed quite early, and certainly no later than the s, when the majority of Englishmen acquired surnames. Apart from Wiltshire, which is landlocked, all these English counties are proximate to the great River Severn estuary or to the Bristol Channel into which it broadens—an area that has been dominated since the s by the major and ancient port of Bristol.

How common is the last name Gay in the United States? No one has discovered where John came from, but in Massachusetts he name a widow and had seven sons by her Samuel, Hezekiah, Nathaniel, Eleazer, Abiel, John, and Jonathanand at least three daughters: the basis for an extensive descendancy.