Family name origins & meanings
- English (mainly East Anglia) : metonymic occupational name for a sailor, from Middle Dutch hoey ‘cargo ship’.
- Northern Irish : variant of Howey 2 and Haughey.
- Scottish : habitational name from some unidentified minor place named Hoy, or from the Orkney island of Hoy, which was named in Old Norse as Háey, from há ‘high’ + ey ‘island’.
- Danish (Høy) : nickname for a tall person, from høj ‘high’.