Barclay
Masculine · “the birch wood”
Barclay is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 954 boys against 24 girls since 1880.
Barclay is the Scottish spelling of an English place, carried north by a family in the twelfth century and used ever since as though it had always belonged there. In America it became a first name, given almost entirely to boys.
How old is the name Barclay?
Barclay first appears in US birth records in 1912 — 113 years ago. The typical Barclay alive today was born around 1962, making them about 63 years old. About 600 people named Barclay are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Barclay most popular?
Barclay peaked in 1948, reaching #1559 nationally. See the whole 1948 chart.
Where it comes from
From Old English beorc and leah give the Gloucestershire place Berkeley to Barclay
The story of Barclay
The name's largest modern presence began with a religious objection. English Quakers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were shut out of the universities, the professions and Parliament, so they went into trade and finance, and a network of Quaker families — Barclays, Lloyds, Gurneys, Frys — built much of British banking between them. Part of the reason they were trusted was doctrinal: Quakers refused to swear oaths, on the grounds that a truthful person needs no oath, and they refused to haggle, quoting one fixed price to everybody. A merchant whose word was the same to a duke and a servant was a merchant you could bank with. The goldsmith's business that became Barclays took the family name in the early eighteenth century, and the name has been on high streets ever since — an ordinary Scottish surname carried into the world by a scruple about swearing.
Meaning
the birch wood
The place behind it is Berkeley in Gloucestershire, from two Old English words meaning birch and open woodland. A family took the name to Scotland after the Conquest, where the spelling settled as Barclay, and from there it spread through Aberdeenshire and beyond as one of the recognizable names of the north-east. The derivation is agreed; what varies is only which side of the border a family's spelling came from.
How the name formed
- Old English beorc and leah give the Gloucestershire place Berkeley
- A family carries the name to Scotland and it is written Barclay
- Quaker families build much of British banking
- The Barclay name goes onto a London bank in the eighteenth century
- American parents use the surname as a first name for both sexes
Related forms: Berkeley · Barclay · Berkley
Pronouncing Barclay
BARK-lee
Two syllables with the stress at the front. In England the same family name spelled Berkeley is said BARK-lee too, which surprises Americans, who say BURK-lee for the California city and the university named after the same bishop.
Nicknames for Barclay
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1912
- Most boys named
- 196921 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1559reached in 1948
- Change vs 2016
- +20.0%6 in 2021, from 5
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Barclay in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Berkeley in English — spelling variant
- Barclay in Scots — same name
- Berkley in English — spelling variant
Barclays among us
people named Barclay are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Barclay sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- A real surname with a documented place behind it and a long history
- Contains a plain, unisex short form that works from the playground onward
- Recognizable without being common, and never mispronounced
- Berkeley and Barclay are both live spellings, and both will be written by people who have only heard the name.
- It is strongly associated with a bank in Britain and the Commonwealth, which some families mind and others do not.
- The spelling is recorded for a few girls, but nearly every child with it is a boy.
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Barclay
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Barclays are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 600 people named Barclay are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Barclay in 2025?
- Barclay is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Barclay with classmates?
- Barclay will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More B names
The most-given names starting with B, all years combined.
Brian#339 · Benjamin#11 · Brandon#261 · Bryan#336 · Bruce#536 · Billy#1068 · Bobby#1097 · Bradley#403
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Barclay? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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