Bayes
surname · Latin script
Meaning: Son of Bay
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 9 countries · latest register: Census Bureau, 2020
/beɪz/(recorded in a dictionary) English · from Wiktionary
Bayes is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 59Kfew records(inferred from the name graph)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 71K
- PEPeru≈1 in 95Kfew records
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)
- Record sources
- 268 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 59K (inferred from the name graph)
2,019 people, 2010
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
New Zealand, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)Son of Bay.
Cited for this meaning 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Bayes 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.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | 2,019 | 1 in 165K | 2.1K | Bayes | 268 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈980 est. | ≈1 in 71K | — | Bayes | 138 |
| CA Canada | ≈390 est. | ≈1 in 105K | — | Bayes | 62 |
| PE Peru | ≈360 est. | ≈1 in 95K | — | Bayes | 16 |
| PH Philippines | ≈350 est. | ≈1 in 333K | — | Bayes | 18 |
| AU Australia | ≈250 est. | ≈1 in 110K | — | Bayes | 58 |
| NZ New Zealand | ≈90 est. | ≈1 in 59K | — | Bayes | 33 |
2,019 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; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000. 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 recorded senses
(measured from records)Bayes 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 French, second-person singular present indicative/subjunctive of bayer
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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)- Joshua Bayesb. 1671British minister
- Thomas Bayesb. 1702GBBritish mathematician and Presbyterian minister (1702-1761)
- Alfred Walter Bayesb. 1832GBBritish genre painter and engraver (1832–1909)
- Walter Bayesb. 1869GBEnglish artist (1869-1956)
- Gilbert Bayesb. 1872GBBritish artist (1872–1953)
- Ronald H. Bayesb. 1932USAmerican poet and university professor (1932–2021)
- Richie Bayesb. 1948CACanadian ice hockey player (1948–2006)
- Sharon Bayesb. 1965CAOlympic field hockey player
- Ashley Bayesb. 1972GBEnglish footballer (born 1972)
- Andrew Bayesb. 1978USAmerican football player
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)Evidence
(measured from records)15 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 9 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 2.1K | #13,319 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 2K | #14,713 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 1.9K | #15,248 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 2
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Bayes mean, and where does it come from?
- Son of Bay. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- How do you pronounce Bayes?
- It depends on the language: in English /beɪz/ (Wiktionary); in Spanish /baʝes/. Transcriptions are machine-generated except where a dictionary is named.
- In which country does Bayes have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 2.0 thousand people named Bayes, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled bayes.
- How common is the name Bayes?
- In the United States, the national register counted 2,019 people named Bayes in 2010, about 1 in 165 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Bayes?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/bayesThe 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, “Bayes”. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.