May Family History
May Surname Meaning
English: from the Middle English male personal name May, a pet form of Matthew (see Mayhew). English, Dutch, and German: from a personal name or nickname taken from the month of May (Middle English, Old French mai, Middle High German meie, from Latin Maius (mensis), from Maia, a minor Roman goddess of fertility). This name was sometimes bestowed on someone born or baptized in the month of May; it was also used to refer to someone of a sunny disposition, or who had some anecdotal connection with the month of May, such as owing a feudal obligation then. In England, this name was possibly also a pet form of Mary or Margaret. This surname is also found in France (Alsace and Lorraine) and Denmark.
English: nickname from Middle English mey, may ‘kinsman’. English: occupational name from Middle English mei, Old French mege, meie ‘physician’, a side form of Mee. Irish (Connacht and Midlands): when not of English origin (see 1–4 above), this is an Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó Miadhaigh ‘descendant of Miadhach’, a personal name or byname meaning ‘honorable, proud’.
French: habitational name from any of various places called (Le) May. Compare Dumay and Lemay. French: from an old vernacular form of the Latin personal name Marius (see Mario).
Jewish (Ashkenazic): habitational name from Mayen, a place in western Germany. Americanized form of Polish and Jewish (from Poland) Maj ‘May’, a cognate of 2 above.
Chinese: variant Romanization of the surnames 麥 (see Mai) and 梅 (see Mei). This form occurs more often for the personal name than for the surname. Amerindian (Mexico): Mayan name from maay ‘cloven hoof’, by extension also ‘young deer’.
Source: Dictionary of American Family Names 2nd edition, 2022