McElroy
surname · Latin script
Meaning: Irish Mac Giolla Rua ‘son of the red-haired lad’; first attested Michael M’Gilrey, M’Ylroye 1376, 1500 Black
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/ˈmækəɫˌɹɔɪ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
McElroy is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- IEIreland≈1 in 7.1K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 13K
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 14K
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
- 435 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 7.1K (inferred from the name graph)
≈180,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Ireland, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Irish Mac Giolla Rua ‘son of the red-haired lad’; first attested Michael M’Gilrey, M’Ylroye 1376, 1500 Black.
Sources 1
- A Dictionary of English Surnames
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
McElroy 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 | — | ≈180,000 est. | ≈1 in 7.8K | — | McElroy | 8 |
| US United States | — | 24,668 | 1 in 13K | 25K | McElroy | 435 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈4,900 est. | ≈1 in 14K | — | McElroy | 176 |
| EG Egypt | — | ≈3,100 est. | ≈1 in 34K | — | McElroy | 2 |
| CA Canada | — | ≈2,300 est. | ≈1 in 17K | — | McElroy | 139 |
| IE Ireland | #540 | ≈730 est. | ≈1 in 7.1K | — | McElroy | 72 |
| IS Iceland | — | ≈43 est. | ≈1 in 8.1K | — | McElroy | 2 |
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).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
McElroy 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.
Anglicized form of Gaelic Mac Giolla Ruaidh ‘son of the redhaired lad’ (from ruadh ‘red’). Compare Gilroy.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
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)
- Mary Arthur McElroyb. 1841USFirst Lady of the United States (1841-1917)
- Neil H. McElroyb. 1904USAmerican businessman (1904-1972)
- Wendy McElroyb. 1951CACanadian individualist anarchist and individualist feminist (born 1951)
- Robert Walter McElroyb. 1954USCatholic cardinal and archbishop
- Alan B. McElroyb. 1960USAmerican screenwriter
- Michael McElroyb. 1967USAmerican actor and singer
- Justin McElroyb. 1980USAmerican podcaster and writer
- Travis McElroyb. 1983USAmerican podcaster and podcast producer
- Griffin McElroyb. 1987USAmerican podcaster
- J.D. McElroyactor
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 18 sources across 7 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 25K | #1,446 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 24K | #1,349 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 24K | #1,479 |
| 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 McElroy mean, and where does it come from?
- Irish Mac Giolla Rua ‘son of the red-haired lad’; first attested Michael M’Gilrey, M’Ylroye 1376, 1500 Black. Recorded by A Dictionary of English Surnames.
- How do you pronounce McElroy?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈmækəɫˌɹɔɪ/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does McElroy have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 180 thousand people named McElroy in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled McElroy.
- How common is the name McElroy?
- In the United States, the national register counted 24,668 people named McElroy in 2010, about 1 in 13 thousand residents.
- How common is McElroy compared with other names?
- In Ireland, McElroy is the 540th most common surname of 73,729 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about McElroy?
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/mcelroyThe 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, “McElroy” — the 540th most common surname in Ireland. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.