From Middle English 'faye' meaning 'fairy,' or Old French 'fei' meaning 'faith.'
Fay is a name of two equally ancient streams. The first flows from the Old French *fae* or *fee*, meaning 'fairy' — a word that gave English its very concept of the fairy realm. In this sense Fay is a name that conjures enchantment, the numinous, and the liminal world between the human and the magical.
The second stream runs through Middle English and Anglo-Norman, where *fai* meant 'faith' — a virtue name given to daughters as a quiet declaration of belief. Whether one leans toward enchantment or devotion, Fay carries resonance. The most famous fictional bearer is Morgan le Fay, the enchantress of Arthurian legend — a figure of extraordinary complexity, appearing variously as healer, sorceress, Arthur's half-sister, and one of the queens who carries him to Avalon after his final battle.
Her name literally means 'Morgan the Fairy,' and through centuries of Arthurian retellings she has shaped the cultural imagination around the name. In literature, Fay Weldon (1931–2023) was one of Britain's most sharp-tongued and celebrated novelists, and Fay Wray (1907–2004) became one of early Hollywood's iconic faces, forever associated with the original *King Kong* (1933). As a given name, Fay peaked in the early 20th century, when short, bright names for women were in fashion alongside May, Kay, and Ray.
It now occupies a quietly elegant register — brief enough to feel modern, old enough to feel timeless. It works equally well as a given name or middle name, and its fairy etymology gives it a secret softness that sits just beneath the surface of its clipped, one-syllable practicality.