McNary
surname · Latin script
Meaning: Anglicized form of Gaelic Mac Naraigh ‘son of Ndrach’, a byname meaning ‘modest’, more commonly Anglicized as Neary
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/məkˈnɛɹi/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
McNary is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- USUnited States1 in 132K(measured from records)
- TNTunisia≈1 in 39K
- SGSingapore≈1 in 73K
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.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 279 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 39K (inferred from the name graph)
≈8,200 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Tunisia, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Anglicized form of Gaelic Mac Naraigh ‘son of Ndrach’, a byname meaning ‘modest’, more commonly Anglicized as Neary.
Sources 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
McNary 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | ≈8,200 est. | ≈1 in 171K | — | McNary | 1 |
| US United States | 2,529 | 1 in 132K | 2.5K | McNary | 279 |
| NG Nigeria | ≈540 est. | ≈1 in 400K | — | McNary | 1 |
| TN Tunisia | ≈300 est. | ≈1 in 39K | — | McNary | 2 |
| CA Canada | ≈290 est. | ≈1 in 131K | — | McNary | 60 |
| SG Singapore | ≈85 est. | ≈1 in 73K | — | McNary | 1 |
| NZ New Zealand | ≈44 est. | ≈1 in 111K | — | McNary | 3 |
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).
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- William S. McNaryb. 1863USAmerican politician from Massachusetts
- John Hugh McNaryb. 1867USAmerican judge
- Charles McNaryb. 1874USAmerican politician
- Cole McNaryb. 1964USAmerican politician
- Josh McNaryb. 1988USAmerican football player
- Dishon McNaryb. 1997USAmerican gridiron football player (born 1997)
- Cornelius McNaryUSbasketball 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)
Attested in 8 sources across 1 country.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 2.5K | #12,292 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 2.5K | #11,431 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 2.4K | #12,249 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 4
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- 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 McNary mean, and where does it come from?
- Anglicized form of Gaelic Mac Naraigh ‘son of Ndrach’, a byname meaning ‘modest’, more commonly Anglicized as Neary. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- How do you pronounce McNary?
- A machine transcription gives /məkˈnɛɹi/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does McNary have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 8.2 thousand people named McNary in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled McNary.
- How common is the name McNary?
- In the United States, the national register counted 2,529 people named McNary in 2010, about 1 in 132 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about McNary?
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/mcnaryThe 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, “McNary”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.