Roy is both a given name and a family surname with varied origins.

France & England

Coat of arms of Le Roy, Normandy. Bibliothèque nationale de France.
A furore Normanorum, libera nos, Domine! THE KING OF AMIGNY... It is therefore to the seventh century that we would have to go back and delve into the furious hordes of those indomitable Norsemen, whose origins we have just outlined, to find there, in France, the mother stock of those LE ROYs we are discussing...

— Du Cluzel de Remaurin, Knight

Origin

Written interchangeably in records as: Roi, Le Roi, De Roy, and Le Roy, the surname Roy originated from the Normans, the descendants of Norse Vikings who settled in Amigny, a commune in Manche, Normandy. It derived from the Old French roy, roi (French pronunciation: [ʁwa]), meaning "king", or "the king" which was a byname used before the Norman Conquest and a personal name in the Middle Ages. The Normans, or "Northmen", after having settled in their new lands in Northern France, quickly adopted the Old French dialects of the region and would later take their language and naming practices with them to England.

Norman usage of the spelling variant Roy in written text dates back to the 12th-century Norman poet Wace in Roman de Rou, where he used both the "rei" & "roy" forms for the title of "king". Wace wrote in vernacular Old Norman (also known as Old Northern French), which is among the few records of Old Norman that remain. The Roy family is also recorded in the 12th century amongst the other family surnames of the city of Caen in Normandy.

Le Roy of Amigny (Silver, three black merlettes)

Originally, Roy may have been a regal name, either from "kingly" bearing, a position of authority, a tournament winner, or one who was in the service of the king. This reflects Norman adaptation of social or martial identifiers — a cultural inheritance from their Viking ancestry, eventually forming a family name that would be passed down.

Middle Ages

Coat of arms of the Knights Templar

Earliest references cite Guillaume de Roy (William of Roy), who was a knight of the Knights Templar and one of several knights, abbots and feudal lords (seigneur) of the Roy family in France and Switzerland. While born Guillaume Le Roy, the usage of de Roy ("of Roy"), a nobiliary particle, signified hereditary nobility. Specifically, this was a claimed connection to a lineage of knights and the lord of a fief recognized by the monarch, rather than a simple descriptive surname which was a legal requirement to be a knight of the Templars. Medieval court scribes consistently translated vernacular names into Latin. Guillaume de Roy is recorded as Guillelmus de Roy, Templar of the Diocese of Soissons, by the scribes during the Trials of the Knights Templar.

Anglo-Norman England

"Roy" Edward III, King of England. Bruges Garter Book.

After the Norman Conquest, the victorious Normans and their allies settled England and eventually formed the ruling class of nobles called Anglo-Normans. Roy, or Roi was a family name and also a title that was held by the kings of England & royal administration (such as: Norroy "North King" and Viceroy "In place of King"). This is also seen with Anglo-Norman patronymic surnames like Fitzroy, from Fi(t)z meaning "son of" and Roy "king", denoting the name bearer as a "son of the king".

Le Roy le veult ("The King wills it"), is a Norman French phrase still used in the Parliament of the United Kingdom to this day as royal assent. A legacy of a time prior to 1488 when parliamentary and judicial proceedings were conducted in Norman, the language of the conquerors after 1066.

North America

Arms of the Association of Roy Families of America.

In Canada and in the United States, the descendants of the families of Roy, Le Roy that immigrated to North America have been granted a coat of arms by the Governor General of Canada.

South Asia

In India and Bangladesh, Roy is an anglicized Bengali variant of the surname Rai, meaning "king". Rai (title), is the historical title of royalty and nobility in the Indian subcontinent, used by rulers and chieftains of many princely states and as a family name.

Before the British Raj, the English spelling of "Roy" did not exist in Bengali records because those records were primarily kept in Bengali, Persian script or Sanskrit-derived scripts. The transition occurred as the British transliterated local titles into English based on how they heard them pronounced. In the Bengali language, the Sanskrit root Raja or Rai is typically pronounced as the English "Roy".

The name is diverse and can be found among upper castes as well as among the scheduled castes.

Scotland

The name Roy is also found in Scotland, an anglicisation from the Scottish Gaelic nickname ruadh, meaning "red". The name predominantly comes second as a middle name. A famous example of the name usage is that of Rob Roy MacGregor, who was a Scottish outlaw and folk hero.

Given name

Surname

Fictional characters

See also