Toy (surname)
Toy is a Chinese, English, and Turkish surname. Origins. As an English surname, Toy originated in two or three different ways. First, it was a nickname, either from Middle English "trifling thing; play, sport", or from Middle French "sheath". Second, it was a relational name, from the given name Toye (whose origin is not clear). Finally, it may have been a toponymic surname referring to a former settlement probably located in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Early records of the English surname Toy include a Robert Toy of Gainford in the patent rolls for 1339. As a Chinese  surname, Toy is a spelling, based on the pronunciation in different varieties of Chinese, of the following Chinese surnames, listed by their spelling in Hanyu Pinyin, which reflects the Standard Mandarin pronunciation: Toy is also a Turkish surname, from "bustard". Statistics. According to statistics compiled by Patrick Hanks on the basis of the 2011 United Kingdom Census and the Census of Ireland 2011, there were 895 people on the island of Great Britain and five on the island of Ireland with the surname Toy as of 2011. The 1881 United Kingdom census found 1,095 people with the surname Toy in  various places in England and Scotland, particularly in Cornwall. The 2010 United States Census found 5,784 people with the surname Toy, making it the 5,951st-most-common name in the country. This represented a slight increase from 5,730 people (5,567th-most-common) in the 2000 Census. In both censuses, roughly six-tenths of the bearers of the surname identified as non-Hispanic white, and slightly more than one quarter as Asian. It was the 616th-most-common surname among respondents to the 2000 Census who identified as Asian.