Local. Perhaps from one or other of the many places called Brae. There are also parishes named Bray in England. Godfredus de Bra, juror on inquisition in Aberdeen, 1400 (REA., I, p. 203). Thomas de Bra, burgess of Dunfermline, 1438—48 (RD., p. 288,305). Walter de Braa leased part of Camsy c. 1443 (Cupar-Angus, I, p. 121). Agnes Bray in Craginche, parish of Kilspindie, 1617 (St. Andrews). David Bre in Ledcassie 1691 (ibid.), and Michael Bree, causewayer in Edinburgh (EBR., III, p. 99).

The name Bray in Ireland is of dual origin: either de Bri (or de Bre) i.e. of a place called Bray not usually Bray, Co. Wicklow; or alternatively Ó Breaghdha, a Munster sept mentioned by O'Heerin in the “Topographical Poem”. O'Donovan in his notes to that work states that this family is now unknown; but the name Bray occurs continually in mediaeval and early modern Munster records and it would appear to be a reasonable supposition that it is there sometimes, if not always, properly O'Bray.

From the year 1207 onwards families called Bray are closely associated with Clonmel and several of the name were sovereigns of the town from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries; in the seventeenth the John Bray who was outlawed as a Jacobite in 1691 was an alderman of that town; a generation earlier there were eight families recorded in the Co. Tipperary hearth money rolls; while Thomas Bray, Archbishop of Cashel from 1792 to 1810, was a notable churchman at that critical time; and finally, as regards Munster, the existence of Bray families in Co. Cork is attested by the frequent occurrence of the name in the Cork and Ross marriage licence bonds from 1697. It rarely appears with the prefix O: there is a county Tipperary Obrey in a 1295 Justiciary Roll (if one can accept this as a variant) and an O'Brahye is mentioned in a Co. Waterford Fiant of 1601. It cannot, however, be laid down that O'Bray is exclusively Munster and de Bray Leinster, because we do find an occasional de Bray in Co.

Tipperary while a fifteenth century O'Bray is mentioned in an ecclesiastical case in 1433 and another in a Meath pardon of 1542. Brays are now fairly numerous in Offaly, but whether these had migrated northwards from Munster or southwards from Meath is uncertain.

Bree is a synonym of Bray, i.e. of de Bray: it does not appear as O'Bree. De Bray and de Bree belong mainly to Co. Dublin and the neighbouring counties of Meath and Louth.

(Anglo-Scand.) Bel, to Bray, or Dweller 'at a Brae or Hill-side [Middle English brá; Old Norse brá, brow, hence brow of a hill] O! ’tis he, the comely swain I slew Upon the duleful braes of Yarrow.

‘The Braes of Yarrow’: Percy's Reliques.

Cp. Bree: Bray, near Dublin, was formerly Bree.

Of dual origin, Bray may be a toponyrnic, de Bré (not usually Bray, Co. Wicklow) also modernized Bree; or the Irish Ó Breaghdha, formerly well known in Munster. SIF 22

(English) One who came from Bray (brow of a hill), the name of places in Berkshire and Devonshire; one who came from Bray, the name of several places in France; the brave man.

This name occurs in all the copies of the so-called Boll of Battel Abbey, and that a great family so designated migrated from Normandy at the period of the Conquest seems pretty certain. Three places in that province are still called Brai; two in the arrondissement of Falaise, and one in that of Bernai. But we have also at least two places called Bray in England; one a parish in Berkshire, well known for its time-serving ecclesiastic, who amidst all the fluctuations of creeds in the XVI. century, made it his ruling principle "to live and die vicar of Bray;" the other, an estate in the parish of St. Just, near Penzance, co. Cornwall. This latter, according to Hals, "gave name and origin to an old family of gentlemen surnamed De Bray, who held in this place two parts of a knight's fee of land 3. Hen. IV. I take the Lord Bray of Hampshire to be descended from this family." D. Gilbert's Cornwall, ii. 282. As a proof of the wide diffusion of the name, it may be mentioned that the dictionaries of Heraldry assign more than twenty different coats of arms to it.

Some families of this name are from an estate in the parish of St. Just, near Penzance. Hals says, "Bray gave name and origin to an old family of gentlemen surnamed De Bray, who held in this place two parts of a knight's fee of land, 3 Henry IV. I take the Lord Bray of Hampshire to be descended from this family." Pryce gives Bray, Bre, Brea, the hill; nom. fam.; and De Braye and Bree are doubtless the same name. Bray is the appellation of places in Alternun and Morval; and there is Brea in Illogan, and Bray's Tenement in Landulph.

From Bray, near Evreux, Normandy. William de Bray occurs 1189-95 (Magni Rotuli Scaccarii Normanniae). Milo de Brai, father of Hugh Trussel, m., c. 1070, Litheuil, Viscountess of Troyes, and, c. 1064, founded Longport Abbey, Normandy (Ord. Vit., transi, by Forester, iii. 78). Milo de B., his son, was a crusader 1096 (Ord. Vit.). In 1148 Richard de Braio held lands at Winchester from the Bishop (Wint. Domesd.). The De Brais possessed estates in Cambridge and Bedford 1165 (Liber Niger). A branch was seated in Devon 13th cent. The Lords Bray descended from this house, and Sir Reginald Bray, the eminent archi­tect, temp. Henry VII.

(E. and C.), Cliff, Hill, Mount.

A location name in Normandy; also in Berkshire Or from the French, de Bray; from the German, Bree; personal name Bray in Roll of Battell Abbey. Radulph de Bray in Rotuli de Oblatis et Finibus, King John

Bray: does not occur in Domesday, but the men of Bray marched with the Conqueror. They came from Bray, near Evreux. No Sieur de Bray is mentioned. Bray is not uncommon as a surname in Cornwall, possibly descendants of some of these “men of Bray.”