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Smith most common surname in Scotland
18/02/2003
Smith, Brown and Wilson are the top three surnames in
Scotland, according to a survey published today.
The survey, carried out by the General Register Office
for Scotland for the years 1999-2001, found that there has
been little change in surnames over the last 140 years.
The main findings are as follows:
- Smith, Brown and Wilson are currently the top three
surnames in Scotland;
- Smith has been the most common surname in all
surveys since that covering the early years of civil
registration;
- On a national basis, there has been little change
in surnames over 140 years;
- Just over 1 in 8 surnames begin with Mac/Mc;
- Patterns of surnames differ widely in different
geographical areas.
In addition the paper contains some analysis of surnames
from the 1901 Census and previous surveys of surnames
conducted by the Registrar General for Scotland over the
last 140 years.
The top 20 Surnames in Scotland, using a sample of over
335,000 names from registrations in 1999,2000 and 2001
are:
Surname Frequency
1. SMITH 4,291
2. BROWN 3,030
3. WILSON 2,876
4. CAMPBELL 2,657
5. STEWART 2,626
6. THOMSON 2,616
7. ROBERTSON 2,536
8. ANDERSON 2,297
9. MACDONALD 1,844
10. SCOTT 1,839
11. REID 1,771
12. MURRAY 1,690
13. TAYLOR 1,595
14. CLARK 1,574
15. ROSS 1,481
16. WATSON 1,390
17. MORRISON 1,388
18. PATERSON 1,382
19. YOUNG 1,373
20. MITCHELL 1,367
Data for the current survey has been collated from birth
and death registrations in the years 1999 - 2001. This
resulted in a total sample of over 335,000 events spread
over the three-year period. A change from previous practice
was the omission from the sample of marriage registrations,
due to the increasing proportion of marriages taking place
in Scotland between persons not resident in Scotland.
As in previous surveys, the current survey does not
distinguish between the varying use of capital letters
within surnames, e.g.
MacDonald/Macdonald. Smith is the most common surname,
accounting for 1.3 per cent of the sample. The top ten
names account for 7.9 per cent and the top 20 account for
12.4 per cent.
Information on the top 10 surnames in Scotland by area
is available at
www.gro-scotland.gov.uk/grosweb/grosweb.nsf/pages/01surnames
together with analysis of surnames from the 1901
Census.