Roy
Feminine · “red”
Roy is given to boys far more often — 408,638 boys against 2,693 girls since 1880. See Roy as a boy name
Roy is the Gaelic word for red, not the French word for king. Almost everyone assumes the second, because roi is French for king and the resemblance is exact, and almost every Roy in the English-speaking world descends from the first.
How old is the name Roy?
Roy first appears in US birth records in 1885 — 140 years ago. The typical Roy alive today was born around 1938, making them about 87 years old. About 1,200 people named Roy are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Roy most popular?
Roy peaked in 1890, reaching #825 nationally. See the whole 1890 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From ruadh to Roy
The story of Roy
Robert MacGregor was called Rob Roy — Red Rob — because of his hair, and after a life of cattle-raiding, blackmail and shifting allegiances he became, through a novel published a century later, one of the most famous Scotsmen who ever lived. The byname went into English as a name in its own right, helped along by the book and by the general Victorian enthusiasm for anything Highland. It arrived in America in the nineteenth century and was near the top of the lists within a generation. The French king is not in it anywhere, though a good many Roys have been told he is.
Meaning
red, red-haired
The Gaelic ruadh means red and was used constantly as a descriptive byname for hair or complexion. The French roi is a coincidence of sound, and no line connects it to the name.
How the name formed
- ruadh
- Roy
Related forms: Ruadh · Rua
Pronouncing Roy
ROY
One syllable, rhyming with boy. The Gaelic original is said ROO-uh, which is not obvious from the English spelling.
Nicknames for Roy
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
- 1885
- Most girls named
- 192769 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #825reached in 1890
- Change vs 1989
- −54.5%5 in 2022, from 11
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.
Roy in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Ruadh in Scottish Gaelic — related form
- Rua in Irish — related form
Roys among us
people named Roy 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
Roy 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
- One syllable and three letters, with no possible mispronunciation.
- It works well in front of long surnames, where fuller names get crowded.
- It has an unbroken run in American records from the first year they were kept.
- It is strongly associated with the first half of the twentieth century.
- Almost everyone will tell you it means king, and it does not.
- The spelling is recorded for a small number of girls, though it reads overwhelmingly as a boy's name.
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What they receive
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Roy
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Roys are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,200 people named Roy are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Roy in 2025?
- Roy is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Roy with classmates?
- Roy will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More R names
The most-given names starting with R, all years combined.
Ruth#173 · Rebecca#349 · Rachel#250 · Rose#114 · Ruby#64 · Robin#704 · Rita#1285 · Rhonda#6116
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Roy? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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