# Goy (surname)

Source: https://namelineage.com/surname/goy/  
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 | Galician |
| Type | occupational, named after the work an ancestor did |
| People in the US (2010 Census) | 537 |
| US rank (2010) | 40,672 of 162,253 |
| How often | about 1 in every 574,945 people |
| Change since 2000 | +11% (485 in 2000) |
| Pronunciation | not recorded |
| Variant spellings | none recorded |

## Etymology

Various origins: * English habitational surname of Norman origin, from any of various places in France called Gouy. * Borrowed from Galician Goy, a habitational surname from a small village in the province of Lugo. * Borrowed from French Goy, a metonymic occupational surname for a farmer, from Old French goi (“bill hook, kind of knife”). * Borrowed from Hokkien 倪 (gê); compare Ni, which derives from the standard Chinese pronunciation of these characters.

## Who carries it

Share of people named Goy 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) | 77% |
| Black (not Hispanic) | 2.8% |
| Hispanic or Latino (any race) | 4.8% |
| Asian and Pacific Islander | 8.9% |
| American Indian and Alaska Native | 5.8% |
| Two or more races | 0.9% |

## Similar surnames

Go, Gow, Goh, Goo, Gay, Guy, Gee, Gao, Guo, Gu, Guay, Gioia.

## 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.