Gilly
surname · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Gilly is a surname written in the Latin script, most frequently recorded in the United States. Recorded meaning: from Latin Gilia, either a feminine form of GILES or a pet-form of GILLIAN; first attested Gilia Fontisbraldi priorissa Hy 2 DC (Wa).
- FRFrance
- USUnited States
- VEVenezuela
Where the name is found, darker where our sources hold more of it. No national register counts its bearers anywhere we hold data, so the map carries no figures. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
from Latin Gilia, either a feminine form of GILES or a pet-form of GILLIAN; first attested Gilia Fontisbraldi priorissa Hy 2 DC (Wa)
Sources 1
- A Dictionary of English Surnames
Where in the world(measured from records)
Recorded in:
No national register we accept counts this name’s bearers, so the page lists where it is found and publishes no figure.
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)
Gilly is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
Pet form of Gill. There may have been some influence from the name of the gillyflower (earlier gilofre, girofle, from Late Greek karyophyllon).
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In English, Alternative spelling of gillie (“a guide”).
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
English: pet form of GILL . There may have been some influence from the name of the gillyflower (earlier gilofre , girofle , from Late Greek karyophyllon ).
as a word
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)
- David Gillyb. 1748DEGerman architect (1748-1808)
- Friedrich Gillyb. 1772PLGerman architect (1772–1800)
- Numa Gillyb. 1834FRFrench politician (1834–1895)
- Clementina Gillyb. 1858CH(1858-1942)
- Hermann Gillyb. 1894DEAustro-Hungarian flying ace
- Renée Gillyb. 1906FRFrench operatic mezzo-soprano
- Charles Louis Gillyb. 1911USAmerican botanist (1911-1970)
- Adolfo Gillyb. 1928MXMexican historian (1928–2023)
- Richard Gillyb. 1948FRFrench chansonnier
- Pierre Gillyb. 1971SESwedish journalist
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).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 32 sources across 17 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 691 | #35,148 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 666 | #32,529 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 608 | #36,736 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1951 | 221 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1921 | 218 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1941 | 192 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1901 | 178 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1971 | 169 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1961 | 165 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1981 | 160 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1991 | 152 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1911 | 150 | — |
Reference works 3
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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 Gilly mean, and where does it come from?
- from Latin Gilia, either a feminine form of GILES or a pet-form of GILLIAN; first attested Gilia Fontisbraldi priorissa Hy 2 DC (Wa) Recorded by A Dictionary of English Surnames.
- In which country does Gilly have the most bearers?
- Gilly is most frequently recorded in the United States.
What do you want to know about Gilly?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/gillyThe same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use; a free API key gives 1,000 requests a day, and bulk access is licensed separately.
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, “Gilly”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.