Hersey

surname · Latin script

Meaning: from Herce or Hercy (Mayenne); first attested Hugh de Hersy 1201 MemR

(measured from records)Officially recorded in 4 countries · latest register: Census Bureau, 2020

Pronunciation:Explore pronunciation →

Hersey is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.

  • IEIreland≈1 in 18Kfew records(inferred from the name graph)
  • GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 42K
  • AUAustralia≈1 in 71K

carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

United States (measured from records)

3,780 people, 2010

Record sources
329 (measured from records)

corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling

strongest: highest-authority source

≈1 in 18K (inferred from the name graph)

Ireland, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Meaning & origin

(measured from records)

from Herce or Hercy (Mayenne); first attested Hugh de Hersy 1201 MemR

Cited for this meaning 1

  • A Dictionary of English Surnames

Where the surname Hersey is found

(measured from records)

Hersey counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.

Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.

Where Hersey is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States3,7801 in 88K3.8KHersey329
GB United Kingdom≈1,700 est.≈1 in 42K—Hersey112
CA Canada≈540 est.≈1 in 77K—Hersey73
AU Australia≈380 est.≈1 in 71K—Hersey60
IE Ireland≈310 est.≈1 in 18K—Hersey7

3,780 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.

Registers cited: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010. Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).

Other names spelled this way

(inferred from the name graph)

Hersey is also recorded as 5 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Spanish surname5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Brazil, Honduras, Colombia

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Herşey

  • French surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, United Kingdom, Canada

    Also written Herşey

  • Italian surname2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Italy, United Kingdom, San Marino

    Also written Herşey

  • Russian surname6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Russia, Ukraine

    Languages: Russian, Ukrainian

    Also written Херси, Hursey, Herşey

  • Hungarian surname2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Hungary, United States

    Also written Herşey

40 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses

(measured from records)

Hersey is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In English, probably a variant of Hershey 2.

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.

Notable people with this name

(measured from records)
1880190019201940Harold Hersey, b. 1893John Hersey, b. 1914Paul Hersey, b. 1931
  • Harold Herseyb. 1893US1893–1964 American pulp magazine editor and publisher
  • John Herseyb. 1914USAmerican journalist, novelist, professor (1914-1993)
  • Paul Herseyb. 1931USAmerican academic (1931-2012)

The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).

How to address them

(machine-generated)
FormalDear Hersey,
InformalHello,

Evidence

(measured from records)

13 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 4 countries.

Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.

Frequently asked questions

What does the name Hersey mean, and where does it come from?
from Herce or Hercy (Mayenne); first attested Hugh de Hersy 1201 MemR Recorded by A Dictionary of English Surnames.
Which countries have the most people with the surname Hersey?
In the United States, the national register counted about 3.8 thousand people named Hersey, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled hersey. After it come United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Ireland; the country table on this page ranks them.
How common is the name Hersey?
In the United States, the national register counted 3,780 people named Hersey in 2010, about 1 in 88 thousand residents.

What do you want to know about Hersey?

Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.

Please leave out anyone's personal details (see Privacy).

Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/hersey

The payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.

About this data

measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated

These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.

Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.

Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.

Cite this page Mondonomo, “Hersey”. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.

See how Hersey parses inside a full name →