English surname from the month of May or a patronymic from Matthew; related to springtime.
Mays occupies that intriguing borderland between surname and given name, a place where American naming culture has always been willing to explore. As a family name it derives from the Old English and Old French forms of the month May, itself named for Maia, the Roman goddess of spring and growth who gave her name to the season when the earth blooms most abundantly. It also connects to the hawthorn tree, called the may-tree in English folklore because it flowers in that month — a plant long associated with luck, fertility, and the threshold between the human world and the faery realm.
The name carries an indelible association with Willie Mays, the San Francisco Giants center fielder widely regarded as the greatest all-around baseball player who ever lived. His joyful, seemingly impossible over-the-shoulder catch in the 1954 World Series — simply called The Catch — made his surname a shorthand for athletic transcendence. For generations of American families, particularly those with deep ties to baseball, Mays resonates with that particular brand of effortless excellence.
As a given name Mays has a quietly modern feel — monosyllabic and strong, carrying warmth without sentimentality. It joins a tradition of month-adjacent names like June, August, and Mae that connect a child to a season, a mood, a particular quality of light. The slight archaism of the -s ending distinguishes it from the more common Mae or May, giving it a subtle surname-style confidence that feels very much at home in contemporary naming.