Mary Christmas as name tops chart in 1921 census

Just in time for Christmas, analysts at the National Records of Scotland have found Mary was the top name for girls and women in Scotland’s Census 1921.

Tallying up the top names from the 4.8 million people recorded in Scotland on 19 June 1921 shows almost 300,000 women and girls sharing the name with Mary, mother of Jesus. 

The top name for men and boys was John with almost 350,000 people recorded with the name.  The census includes everyone from the youngest babies to the oldest people in the country at the time. 

Individuals records from the census are kept confidential for 100 years but this information can now be searched by historians and those uncovering their family tree on scotlandspeople.gov.uk.  

Gerry Donnelly, ScotlandsPeople lead NRS, said:

“Our family history website ScotlandsPeople now has all the records from the 1921 census available online to search so people can find their grandparents, great-grandparents or even earlier generations and see where they were living and what work they had. It’s a fascinating glimpse into the lives of a generation that did so much to build the world we live in today.

“One of the things which has changed markedly is the range of names. By comparing the top 10 first names from the 1921 census with babies born in 2021 there are a few similarities but only for male names. This reflects the trend in recent decades towards much more variation in the names we see.”

Compared with modern names for baby girls there is little in common. None of the names which are in the top 10 for the 1921 census feature in the most popular list for baby girls born in 2021. Isabella which was 6th most popular in 1921 was 32nd for babies born last year with 121 registrations of girls with that name.

It’s a slightly different story with names for men and boys. If we compare the first names of all males in the 1921 census with the names of baby boys born in 2021 James and Alexander are still in the top 10 and the most popular name for boys is ‘Jack’ – historically a pet name for John. Charlie and Archie are also high in the 2021 list, derivatives of Charles and Archibald which were common in 1921. Thomas also remains a popular name. It came in at 19 last year and 6 in the 1921 census.

Gerry added: “Our counts suggest that that more than half of the people recorded in Scotland’s Census 1921 had one of the top ten names for males and females. Finding out what names were in your family can be surprising but it’s likely you will find some Marys and Johns.”

Notes to editors

1. These are not official statistics and there is isn’t a publication with the full lists available. 
2. In the 1921 census we saw lots of abbreviations and use of variations in names such as Alex for Alexander. We have counted them separately in the same way that we do for the babies’ names. It is unlikely to have changed the order of the top 10 names. 
3. A report on 100 years of baby names done in 2000 can be found here
4. Our official report on Babies’ first names for 2021 can be found here 
5. The 1921 census indexes are available to search on www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk along with a wide range of other records including earlier census and historic births, deaths and marriages

Top twenty names lists