# Fail (surname)

Source: https://namelineage.com/surname/fail/  
Publisher: Name Lineage. Counts from the US Census Bureau; origin and etymology from Wiktionary; bearers from Wikidata. Data updated 2026-11-11.

A surname.

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Origin | not recorded |
| Type | not recorded |
| People in the US (2010 Census) | 754 |
| US rank (2010) | 30,863 of 162,253 |
| How often | about 1 in every 409,477 people |
| Change since 2000 | -36.4% (1,185 in 2000) |
| Pronunciation | not recorded |
| Variant spellings | none recorded |

## Etymology

* As a Scottish and Irish surname, shortened from McPhail. * As a Manx surname, variant of Fayle. * As a south German surname, from the adjective feil (“for sale”).

## Who carries it

Share of people named Fail in the 2010 US Census by the Census's own race and ethnicity groups. The Census suppresses a share when the count behind it is small.

| Group | Share |
|---|---|
| White (not Hispanic) | 82% |
| Black (not Hispanic) | 13% |
| Hispanic or Latino (any race) | 1.5% |
| Two or more races | 1.9% |

## Similar surnames

Fall, Faul, Fiala, Failla, File, Faile, Feil, Fiel, Foley, Fell, Feeley, Fewell.

## How to read these numbers

A Census count is people alive and counted in 2010, not births, and names occurring fewer than 100 times are not published at all. Ethnicity shares are the Census's own categories.