Clay
Usually a topographic surname for someone who lived by clay soil or a clayey place; sometimes it may reflect an occupation such as a dauber or plasterer.
The #708 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 6,321 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Clay comes from Old English claeg, meaning "clay" or "sticky earth." As a surname, it was often used for someone who lived near clay soil or a clayey stretch of ground. Some older writers also noted a possible occupational sense, linking it to a worker who daubed or plastered with clay, though the place-based explanation is the usual one.
History
The name is well attested in medieval English records in forms such as de la Clay, del Clay, and in le Clay. It appears especially in English counties such as Lincolnshire and elsewhere in the east and Midlands, reflecting ordinary local landscape naming. The surname later spread widely in Britain and is common enough in the United States today, though not among the very most frequent surnames.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Older surname writers sometimes connected Clay with a medieval word for a plasterer or dauber, which shows how one short surname can point to both landscape and labor.
From the historical record
“folk, Durham, Leicester, and York. CLAY. Several localities bear this name, but the surname must sometimes have been adopted from residence in a clayey district. The forms in the H.R. are Cley, Clai, in le Clay, del Clay, and de la Clej^e. Le Clayere may be synonymous, although a Cleymanne was, according to the…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom