Dy (surname) explained

Dy is a surname in Cambodia and the Philippines.

Origins

As an English surname, Dy is a variant spelling of Dye, which may have come from the Greek masculine given name Dionysios or its feminine form Dionysia. One early record of the surname Dy is in the 1379 poll tax returns of Yorkshire.^[1] Another known origin of the surname is from the Chinese Filipino community, where Dy transcribes a Hokkien pronunciation of the Chinese surname spelled Lǐ in the Hanyu Pinyin transcription of its Mandarin pronunciation.^[2] There is also a Khmer surname transcribed as Dy (Central Khmer: ឌី, Central Khmer: Di).

Statistics

The 2010 United States Census found 1,932 people with the surname Dy, making it the 15,232nd-most-common name in the country. This represented an increase from 1,422 (18,077th-most-common) in the 2000 census. In both censuses, slightly less than nine-tenths of the bearers of the surname identified as Asian, and about five percent as White.^[3]

People

• Tomas Dy-Liacco (1920–2019), Filipino-American electrical engineer
• Dy Proeung (Central Khmer: ឌី ព្រឿង; born 1930s), Cambodian architect
• Pauline Dy Phon (Central Khmer: ឌី ផុន; 1933–2010), Cambodian botanist at the National Museum of Natural History in France
• Dy Saveth (Central Khmer: ឌី សាវ៉េត; born 1944), Cambodian actress and the first Miss Cambodia (1959)
• Benjamin Dy (1952–2013), Filipino politician
• Luane Dy (born 1986), Filipino television personality
• Denise Dy (born 1989), Filipino tennis player
• Jason Dy (born 1990), Filipino singer
• Rolando Dy (born 1990), Filipino mixed martial artist
• Kim Kianna Dy (born 1995), Filipino volleyball player
• Philbert Dy, Filipino film critic

See also

• Di (surname)
• DY (rapper)

Notes and References

1. Book: Bardsley, C. W. E.. A dictionary of English and Welsh surnames, with special American instances. Oxford University Press. 1901. 260.
2. Book: Chu, Richard. Chinese and Chinese Mestizos of Manila: Family, Identity, and Culture, 1860s–1930s. Brill. 2010. 9789047426851. 410.
3. Web site: How common is your last name?. Newsday. 15 January 2020.