O'Hay

Hayes
Family name
Hayes surname map
Region of origin	Ireland, England, Scotland
Language(s) of origin	English
Related names	Hay, Haye, Hays, Heas, Heyes, Highes, O'Hea, Hease, Heyes, Heise, Hughes
Footnotes:

Hayes is an English language surname. In the United States Census, 1990, Hayes was the 100th most common surname recorded. The oldest record of the surname dates to 1197 in the Eynsham Cartulary of Oxfordshire, where it appears on the form Heise. There are nineteen coats of arms assumed by or granted to individuals with this or a similar surname. Though primarily a surname, "Hayes" sometimes appears as a given name in census records.

In Ireland, Hayes originated as a Gaelic polygenetic surname "O hAodha", meaning descendant of Aodh ("fire"), or of Aed, an Irish mythological god. Septs in most counties anglicised "O hAodha" to "Hayes". In County Cork, it became "O'Hea". In County Ulster, it became "Hughes", the patronymic of Hugh, an anglicized variant of the given name Aodh. Hayes is noted on a public record in County Wexford as early as 1182. In County Cork, under the Munster providence, Hayes falls under the banner of the McNamara clan in the Dalcassian Sept. Other Irish Hayeses have also been associated with Clan Cian, the ruling O'Carroll clan of southern Ireland.

In England, Hayes arose as a locational surname, associated with one of the several places named or suffixed -Hay, -Hays, -Hayes, etc., such as locations in Kent, Middlesex, Devon and Dorset. Such place names had two origins, one based on the Old English haes (brushwood, underwood) and the other based on horg (enclosure) or hege (hedge). The distribution of Hayes in Great Britain in 1881 and 1998 is similar and restricted to areas of England well separated from Scotland and showing some penetration into Wales. This surname has gained in popularity in the century between 1881 and 1998, but remains at a rank of <150 and a frequency lower than that in the United States and some other countries of the Commonwealth.

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