How common is the surname Bey?

5,453 people in the United States had the surname Bey in the 2010 Census, about 1 in every 56,619 Americans. It ranked 6,265th of 162,253 surnames.

What ethnicity is the surname Bey?

In the 2010 Census, 64% of people named Bey identified as Black (not Hispanic), and 21% as white (not Hispanic).

Who is the most famous person named Bey?

Yasiin Bey, American rapper, followed by Turhan Bey.

Where is the surname Bey most common?

Wikidata records people named Bey in the United States, the Ottoman Empire and Algeria and 1 other country.

Is the surname Bey getting more or less common?

More common. 4,809 people carried it in the 2000 Census and 5,453 in 2010, up 13%.

The surname Bey

A surname, carried by 5,453 people in the United States.

1 syllable Soundex B000

Every surname held by 100 or more people in the 2010 US Census, most common on the left (162,253 in all). Bey is more common than 96.1% of them.

Origin

* As a north German and Dutch surname, variant of Beye, Baye, vowel variants of the Danish surname Boye. * Also as a German surname, Germanized from Lower Sorbian baj (“storyteller”), from Proto-Slavic *bajь, related to *bajati (“to tell”). Compare Bay. * As a French surname, from several placenames in France, from a regional variant of bief (“mill-race”). * As an Islamic surname (generally Algeria), from Turkish bey (see Beg). See also Pasha, Agha.

Origin from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0).

How common it is

2010 US Census

There were 5,453 people named Bey in the United States in 2010, about 1 in every 56,619 Americans. That is up 13% since 2000, when the Census counted 4,809.

#6,265

rank among US surnames

5,453

people in 2010

1.9

per 100,000 Americans

+13.4%

change since 2000 (was #6,510)

Rank	Surname	People	1 in
#6,258	Kite	5,457	56,578
#6,260	Cronk	5,456	56,588
#6,263	Amerson	5,455	56,599
#6,265	Bey	5,453	56,619
#6,267	Knecht	5,452	56,630

Who is named Bey

Race and Hispanic origin as people reported it in the 2010 Census

64% of people named Bey identified as Black (not Hispanic), 21% as white (not Hispanic) and 5.7% as Hispanic or Latino (any race).

Black (not Hispanic) 64%
White (not Hispanic) 21%
Hispanic or Latino (any race) 5.7%
Two or more races 5.0%
Asian and Pacific Islander 2.8%
American Indian and Alaska Native 1.1%

Compare: most common surnames among Black Americans.

Famous Beys

9 notable people on Wikidata, most written-about first

Yasiin Bey
American rapper, born 1973
Turhan Bey
Actor born in Austria (1922-2012)
Maïssa Bey
Algerian writer, born 1950
Salome Bey
American-born Canadian singer-songwriter, composer, and actress (1933-2020)
Tyler Bey
American basketball player (born 1998)
Andy Bey
American musician, 1939–2025
Chris Bey
American professional wrestler, born 1996
Mickey Bey
Boxer, born 1983
Eqrem Vlora
Albanian politician (1885–1964)

Notable Beys come mostly from the United States (5), the Ottoman Empire (2) and Algeria (1).

Spellings and sound-alikes

Useful when a record has your ancestor under another spelling

Surnames that sound like Bey

Bey has the Soundex code B000, the code US census indexes have used since the 1930s. Every surname with code B000.

Questions

Where does the surname Bey come from?: * As a north German and Dutch surname, variant of Beye, Baye, vowel variants of the Danish surname Boye. * Also as a German surname, Germanized from Lower Sorbian baj (“storyteller”), from Proto-Slavic *bajь, related to *bajati (“to tell”). Compare Bay. * As a French surname, from several…
How common is the surname Bey?: 5,453 people in the United States had the surname Bey in the 2010 Census, about 1 in every 56,619 Americans. It ranked 6,265th of 162,253 surnames.
What ethnicity is the surname Bey?: In the 2010 Census, 64% of people named Bey identified as Black (not Hispanic), and 21% as white (not Hispanic).
Who is the most famous person named Bey?: Yasiin Bey, American rapper, followed by Turhan Bey.
Where is the surname Bey most common?: Wikidata records people named Bey in the United States, the Ottoman Empire and Algeria and 1 other country.
Is the surname Bey getting more or less common?: More common. 4,809 people carried it in the 2000 Census and 5,453 in 2010, up 13%.