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The bay Surname

bay Name Meaning and History

  1. English, French, and Dutch: nickname for someone with chestnut or auburn hair, from Middle English, Old French bay, bai, Middle Dutch bay ‘reddish brown’ (Latin badius, used originally of horses).
  2. English: from the Middle English personal name Baye, Old English Beaga (masculine) or Beage (feminine).
  3. Scottish: reduced form of McBeth.
  4. German: from the Germanic personal name Baio.
  5. The name is also found in Denmark and Norway, where it may be a short form of German Bayer or from baygh, originally a loan word from French denoting a type of fabric.

Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4
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bay Family Facts

Distribution of bay Families in the US in 1920
Number of bay families
 60-117
 21-59		 1-20
 0
Compiled by Ancestry.co.uk from the 1920 US Federal Census records

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Year

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  • You can decide where (in which states) to start searching for bay records.
  • You can see how bay families moved over time by selecting different Census years.

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The information for this map came from Ancestry.co.uk’s US Federal Census Collection.
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