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There are approximately 19,464 people named Bray in the UK. That makes it the 520th most common surname overall. Out of every million people in the UK, approximately 308 are named Bray.

Region of origin

British Isles

Country of origin

England

Language of origin

English

Religion of origin

Christian

Classification

English
From given name or forename

Related and similar surnames

Bree
Braa
Bras
Brais
Bram
Bral
Bran
Brar
Brad
Brak
Bbray
Bra
Brai
Brae
Braiy
Braay
Braey
Braee
Braai
Braae
Braez
Braaz
Braes
Braiey
Brao
Braas
Bragh
Braeye
Brahy
Braais

The Bray surname in historical dictionaries

Patronymica Britannica (1860)

BRAY. This name occurs in all the copies of the so-called Roll of Battel Abbey, and that a great family so designated migrated from Normandy at the period of the Conquest seems pretty certain. Three places in that province are still called Brai ; two in the arrondissement of Falaise,. and one in that of Bernai. But we have also at least two places called Bray in England ; one a parish in Berkshire, well knovra for its time-serving ecclesiastic, who amidst all the fluctuations of creeds in the XVI. century, made it his ruling principle " to live and die vicar of Bray ;" the other, an estate in the parish of St. Just, near Penzance, co. Cornwall. This latter, according to Hals, " gave name and origin to an old family of gentlemen surnamed De Bray, who held in this place two parts of a knight's fee of land 3. Hen. IV. I take the Lord Bray of Hampshire to be descended from this family." D. Gilbert's Cornwall, ii. 282. As a proof of the wide diffusion of the name, it may be mentioned that the dictionaries of Heraldrj' assign more than twenty different coats of arms to it.

Lower, Mark A (1860) Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom. London: J.R. Smith. Public Domain.

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