Clay
Meaning
from an English surname for someone who lived near or worked with clay; also a short form of Clayton ("clay settlement")
The story
Clay is the plain-spoken English surname for someone who lived near or worked with clay, and it doubles as the short form of Clayton, clay settlement in Old English. The records show a genuine midcentury heyday: about 4,300 boys in the 1950s and about 5,700 in the 1960s, the era of Cassius Clay's rise, then a steady presence around four to five thousand a decade before easing to about 3,300 in the 2010s and about 2,900 so far this decade. Brazil carries a few hundred. One syllable, an element of the earth, and no pretension anywhere in it: Clay is the rare name that sounds like a handshake, it fits a farmer and a senator equally well, and it has never once left the American records in fourteen decades.
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Clay peaked in the 1990s and the 2020s in nearly equal measure.
See popularity in Brazil
Popularity in Brazil
348 people · the #17,190 first name in Brazil · about 1 in 500,000 · median age 45
Among people named Clay living in Brazil at the 2022 census, more were born in the 1970s than in any other decade.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
When you meet Clay
People given the name Clay in the United States span the generations: the middle half were born anywhere from 1960 to 2009. Age is the one thing the name won't tell you.
Estimated from US Social Security birth registrations and typical lifespans; a rough guide, not a rule.
The Clay deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Clay truly comes from, how it traveled, and what a century of records reveals. If you have grown a tree on nametree, it also considers how Clay fits with your family’s names and surname.
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