The Scottish surname Barclay is an habitational name of English origin, from Berkeley in Gloucestershire, named in Old English with be(o)rc ‘birch’ and leah ‘woodland clearing’. An old family tradition is that the Scottish family is descended from John de Berkeley, who was the son of Roger de Berkeley, provost of Berkeley, and went to Scotland in 1069 with St Margaret. Another theory is that the clan is descended from a John de Berkeley who went north in 1124 with Maud, Queen of David I. The name is first recorded in the New World in 1707 when Thomas Barclay arrived in Boston, Massachusetts. Today there are approximately 12,000 bearers of the name Barclay living in the US.