Murray

Murray is a surname used as a given name, especially associated with the region of Moray in northeastern Scotland. That place name is traditionally explained through old Celtic elements for sea and settlement. The surname also has Irish branches with different family histories, so the Scottish geographical route is not necessarily the explanation for every Murray family.

The name has a strong surname identity, including its place in Scottish clan history. Literature gives it another familiar association through Mina Murray, later Mina Harker, in Bram Stoker's Dracula. Used as a first name, Murray can preserve a family surname while carrying both the coastal place-name background and the cultural associations gathered by later bearers.